Amazon Takes On Airspace

By Matt Pillar, chief editor

Given an inch by the FAA, Amazon is now asking for a few hundred feet.

In an uncharacteristically quick and progressive ruling earlier this year, the FAA gave Amazon heavily restricted permission to test Prime Air, the e-commerce juggernaut’s fledgling drone-based delivery service model. That was a significant win for Amazon, and it served to persuade skeptics—myself included—that the e-tailer’s ambitious vision wasn’t so far-fetched. Amazon’s heavy investment in the project, which includes a former NASA astronaut and a former Boeing engineer on the payroll, is enough to quell suspicions that Prime Air is a PR stunt.

Now, just a few months after the FAA gave that inch, Amazon has doubled down on its ask. In perhaps the most ambitious step toward proving the feasibility of 30-minute delivery via drone yet, it’s asking for airspace. In fact, Amazon is proposing a wholesale remodel of airspace as we know it.

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