UPS delivery drones are now allowed to fly longer distance flights beyond the sight of ground operators, the agency said in a press release. By opening the door, drone delivery companies like Wing, FedEx, and Zip will deliver packages across a larger area and serve more customers.
UPS Flight Forward, a UPS subsidiary focused on drone delivery, can now deliver small packages beyond the visual line of sight without spotters on the ground tracking the route and skies for other aircraft using SwissDrones SVO 50 V2 drones. The FAA also issued permissions for two other companies to fly beyond sight for commercial purposes. The company, uAvionix Corp. and Phoenix Air Unmanned, is currently under investigation by the state's infrastructure inspection company.
UPS first received government approval to operate its drone service in 2019, the same year the FAA approved Alphabet's Wing service to operate commercially. First, the company focused on building a drone delivery network for US hospitals.
The news comes just a few days after Walmart announced it is collaborating with Wing to make deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. Walmart has already delivered more than 10,000 packages across seven states, including Zipline, DroneUp, and DroneUp. The partnership will allow Amazon to deliver to an extra 60,000 homes.
yet not all drone delivery programs have had a seamless go of things, such as Amazon's drone delivery service Prime Air. In May, the company had only made 100 deliveries in California and Texas, the two locations it operates. It's not clear what the number is now, but it's well behind Amazon's previous forecast that it'd complete 10,000shipments to customers via drone by the end of 2023.