It’s been almost 12 years since Amazon launched (via a segment on 60 Minutes) the race to develop a new transportation mode: drone delivery. It’s been a long and relatively slow race, but it seems like we are finally near the finish line (or the starting line, depending on how you look at it) to making nationwide drone delivery a reality.
On February 28, 2025, the Commercial Drone Alliance sent a letter to the Director of the Office of Management and Budget asking for “swift action on deregulating commercial drone operations by expediting the BVLOS [Beyond Visual Line of Sight] rule.” As stated in the CDA’s letter:
“We urge the Trump Administration to expedite this industry-supported rulemaking as a deregulatory action that reduces administrative burden, bolsters economic growth, and strengthens national security under Executive Order (EO) 14192, Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation.”
Then in mid-March, as reported by Dan Catchpole and David Shepardson at Reuters, “U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said that the Federal Aviation Administration plans to propose rules to expand use of drones for deliveries and other services.” Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“We’re in the stages of developing a rule to make sure we can give more authority and clarity to those who are developing these drones,” Duffy told reporters after a tour of Amazon Prime Air drone delivery service’s headquarters in Seattle, saying the agency plans to release a proposal “in relatively short order.”
Over the weekend, one of the rules was leaked to Drone News: the FAA is set to approve nationwide drone deliveries, but there is a catch — all packages have to parachute down from at least 100 feet up in the air. The parachutes must also comply with the following color-coded system:
- Red – Fragile items
- Blue – General merchandise
- Yellow – Perishable goods
- Green – High-value items
- Glow-in-the-dark strips required for nighttime deliveries.
Not surprising, Amazon, Zipline, and Alphabet’s Wing — the three leading players in drone delivery — are all confused and highly critical of this requirement. The drones developed by Zipline and Alphabet currently use a tether to lower their payloads, while Amazon’s drones drop padded packages from 13 feet.
“Since 2014, we have made more than 1.4 million drone deliveries in seven countries using our tether system,” said Lev Wilbright at Zipline. “We would basically have to start all over with drone design, engineering tests, and pilot tests if we have to switch to parachutes,” he said.
“Plus, we would need a way to get the parachutes back,” he added, at least those that aren’t damaged, blown away, stuck in trees, or eaten by the family dog. This will drastically increase the cost of drone delivery, which is already sky high.
For Amazon, the drop distance of at least 100 feet is the bigger issue. Thinking out loud, and off the record, a senior Amazon engineer who works at Prime Air said, “If that’s the case, then instead of parachuting down the package, we would parachute down the whole drone. After the customer takes the package, they would fold and put the parachute in the payload compartment and then the drone would take off back to its base.”
Quay Knight, spokesman for Alphabet’s Wing service, said that their engineers are already working on how to comply with this rule, assuming it goes into effect. “In fact, based on previous research we’ve done with parachutes, we have designs that embed tiny fans and GPS guidance systems into parachutes.” This will enable packages to “almost always” land within a 75-foot radius of the intended address, Knight added.
Responding to the leaked details, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy would neither confirm nor deny the new drone delivery rules. His office simply issued a brief statement: “This all sounds like an April Fools’ joke to us.”
