Amazon drone deliveries coming to the UK by the end of 2024

Is it finally going to happen?

That drone is big!

Will regulations allow small businesses to compete?

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I still can’t see how it’s a viable concept - power lines, telephone wires etc. I bet the issue rate is pretty high once they start scaling it up - there’s just too much going on in the average neighbourhood for this to be a realistic prospect. Plus … who’s charging these things? An average van has what… 200-300 parcels in it per day, covering a massive area on a single tank of fuel. There’s no way these are going to fly back and forth to a delivery hub for each parcel surely? It just doesn’t make sense.

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In the US there is planned for a concept of “airways” for commercial usage. I think that the fairest way to do this is that commercial usage should operate in a narrow height band (400-450) with an exception of vertical decent through 0-400 when delivering. This would separate commercial and private usage, however I suspect this is not what will happen I suspect that we will have large portions of our airspace carved out as airways for Besos.

I’d like to know if they intend to use DJI drones? Or will the US only allow drones made by US manufacturers to be used by Amazon. When introduced in the UK will they use the same drones as they are using in the US, or will they be more open minded and use drones from manufacturers based from other parts of the world. In the US at the moment it seems like if it’s not made in the US you can’t use it. I’d love to know how they’re going to stop all our American friends from flying DJI drones there’ll end up being a black market in the states for DJI drones. It’s all going to be fun to see the outcome of all of this, or will sanity prevail in the end!!

Amazon has spent years (a decade?) developing their own, incredibly specialised, delivery drone.

They had a facility and a team in the UK developing and testing it for a number of years.

Amazon would have no interest in using a DJI drone.

The Amazon delivery drones are huge. Nothing like a DJI camera drone.