No Amazon Drone Deliveries For Now, Says FAA

Drones won’t be delivering your Amazon Prime order any time soon under new rules proposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), CNBC reported.

The FAA’s draft rules, which were published on Sunday (Feb. 15), would require commercial drones to be operated in direct line-of-sight of operators, flying no higher than 500 feet and close enough that an operator can see the drone continuously with no visual aids beyond prescription glasses or contact lenses. That cuts out both autonomous drones and those operated using an onboard camera. Amazon has considered both those ideas for its proposed Prime Air drone delivery service for small packages.

Drones also wouldn’t be allowed to fly over people or at night, or to drop anything while in flight. Drones would also be limited to a top speed of 100 miles per hour and would require an FAA-certified operator who could only fly one drone at a time — but the operator wouldn’t have to be a trained aircraft pilot.

Those restrictions would appear to make Amazon’s drone delivery plans impossible, at least in the U.S. for now. “The FAA needs to begin and expeditiously complete the formal process to address the needs of our business, and ultimately our customers,” Paul Misener, Amazon VP of global public policy, told CNBC by email. “We are committed to realizing our vision for Prime Air and are prepared to deploy where we have the regulatory support we need.”

Other potential commercial drone users were more optimistic. “This provides a glimmer of hope for potential commercial operators,” Charles Easterling, founder of Crescent Unmanned Systems, told Bloomberg News. “There are a lot of startups out there that have been waiting for this and for potential users, it sets their minds at ease.”

The FAA’s draft rule was never intended to support deliveries, but for drone use in commercial photography, agriculture, law enforcement, search and rescue, and inspecting structures such as bridges and telecommunications towers. Even those drone uses won’t be legal until the rule makes it through a roughly two-year comment and approval process.

However, there’s still some hope for Amazon, Google, Alibaba and other companies hoping to use drones for deliveries. The FAA will have a process to grant waivers allowing broader uses if companies can show those uses are safe. “This is not the last word, by any means,” said FAA chief Michael Huerta.

In the meantime, Alibaba tested delivery drones in three large Chinese cities earlier this month, and Amazon is testing drones near Cambridge, England — as well as closer-to-the-ground bike deliveries in New York City.