Drone deliveries will no longer be available to Amazon customers in California. The online retailer, which has been in business since 2022, has closed its delivery facility in Lockeford and is now providing job options at other locations to its local employees. The information was revealed by Amazon rather casually when it announced that it will begin drone deliveries later this year in the West Valley Phoenix Metro region. It plans to use buildings close to its fulfillment center in Tolleson to launch its drones. Amazon claims that because this is the first time drone deliveries have been completely integrated into its network, the firm will be able to process and deliver orders more rapidly.
The firm is presently coordinating with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and local authorities to obtain the necessary licenses, so it is unable to provide a precise start date for its drone deliveries in Phoenix. However, Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego is in favor of it, referring to drone deliveries as “the future” and stating that they will aid in “reducing local pollution” and further solidifying Phoenix “as a hotbed for the innovative technology of tomorrow.”
Amazon will carry on with its drone delivery operations in College Station, Texas, even if it is closing its operations in California. The Information revealed shortly after the company began using drones as couriers in those two areas that it has only made a small number of deliveries using the technique, primarily because of FAA regulations that forbid the machines from flying over people or roads unless Amazon obtains permission in each instance. Although that was probably far from what the firm had planned to attain by then—it had aimed to make 10,000 deliveries by the end of the year—it finally surpassed 100 drone deliveries by the middle of 2023.
Those setbacks, however, don’t seem to have deterred Amazon. It’s currently testing its next-gen MK30 drones that can fly twice as far as its current drones, and it also said that it’s deploying drone deliveries in more locations in the US next year.
