Amazon Drone Flights Seen Grounded by Expected U.S. Rules
Less than 24 hours after Jeff Bezos floated the idea of delivering packages via airborne drones, the notion was met with resistance from regulators and skepticism in the shipping industry.
This undated image provided by Amazon.com shows the so-called Prime Air unmanned aircraft project that Amazon is working on in its research and development labs. Photograph by Amazon via AP Images
The Federal Aviation Administration said yesterday it doesn’t allow any commercial unmanned flights now, and judging by guidelines sketched as recently as Nov. 7, it won’t allow the robotic trips envisioned by Bezos. United Parcel Service Inc., the largest shipping company, said it too has met with drone vendors and for now is content to stick to terra firma.
Bezos’s vision of selling books on a nascent Internet turned Amazon.com Inc. into the world’s largest online retailer, and his resulting $35.4 billion fortune has let him pursue other big ideas, such as space flight. While he showed in a Dec. 1 television interview that Amazon’s prototype “octocopter” is able to deliver a small package, regulators have yet to be convinced the world is ready for robots with eight whirring propellers to drop in on suburban driveways.
“It’s unclear whether those commercial purposes will be allowed,” said Ben Gielow, general counsel of the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International, an Arlington, Virginia-based trade group. The association is urging the FAA to open the door to broader drone use, as long as it’s safe.