TechCrunch reports UPS Gets FAA Approval to Operate an Entire Drone Delivery Airline
UPS announced today that it is the first to receive the official nod from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate a full “drone airline,” which will allow it to expand its current small drone delivery service pilots into a country-wide network.
In its announcement of the news, UPS said that it will start by building out its drone delivery solutions specific to hospital campuses nationwide in the U.S., and then to other industries outside of healthcare.
UPS racks up a number of firsts as a result of this milestone, thanks to how closely it has been working with the FAA throughout its development and testing process for drone deliveries. As soon as it was awarded the certification, it did a delivery for WakeMed hospital in Raleigh, N.C. using a Matternet drone, and it also became the first commercial operator to perform a drone delivery for an actual paying customer outside of line of sight thanks to an exemption it received from the government.
First Ever No-Line-of-Sight Commercial Application
UPS subsidiary Flight Forward has more details.
- Makes first revenue-generating flight beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS)
- UPS’s full “Part 135 Standard*” certification is a first for any company
- UPS to expand company’s drone delivery network serving healthcare and other customer applications
Unlimited Number, Nightime Operation
“This is history in the making, and we aren’t done yet,” said David Abney, UPS chief executive officer. “Our technology is opening doors for UPS and solving problems in unique ways for our customers. We will soon announce other steps to build out our infrastructure, expand services for healthcare customers and put drones to new uses in the future.”
“The FAA’s Part 135 Standard certification has no limits on the size or scope of operations. It is the highest level of certification, one that no other company has attained. UPS Flight Forward’s certificate permits the company to fly an unlimited number of drones with an unlimited number of remote operators in command. This enables UPS to scale its operations to meet customer demand. Part 135 Standard also permits the drone and cargo to exceed 55 pounds and fly at night, previous restrictions governing earlier UPS flights.”
Wow.
This was faster and more complete and less restricted than I expected.
What About Amazon?
How far behind can Amazon be?
I suspect less than a year.
The implications are enormous. Drones will eventually take over small-package delivery (up to 55 pounds) in suburbia and residential areas where drones can easily land.
One can rule out deliveries to the 44th floor of a high-rise apartment and to high-crime areas, but otherwise, many delivery driving jobs will vanish sooner or later.
Driverless Trucking Coming Up
I believe Federal DOT approval of commercial driverless trucking on interstate highways will follow soon.
When (not if) that happens, the alleged shortage of truck drivers will morph into a huge surplus almost immediately.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
As is the case with all else in our current Idiotopia, the biggest limitation to this, will end up being halfwits unable to build anything of value; “contributing” by effectively banning people from building houses more suitable for drone delivery, than the ones the halfwits inherited from Great Grandpa. Since, like, not de facto forcing other people to live under bridges is, like, baaad for myy poppeti vaijues and, like, “the market” and, like, “homes” and, like stuff…..
And, as is the case in every other area: Since the “downright morons” are, as Mencken predicted, by now in complete control over near all institutions, public as well as private, in the West; the clueless idiots’ concerns will be the ones which are paid the most heed to…..
I assume that delivery costs differ by destination, day, urgency, number of packages, etc.
There are a lot of variables that make up the cost for one delivery of x parcels to one destination.
If somebody is getting 100 parcels at once, then a truck will probably be cheaper than 100 drone visits. If there are 20 parcels to deliver on one street to several nearby addresses, then again, I’d expect a truck to be cheaper.
But there will also be parcels that are far cheaper to deliver via drone. A single parcel to an address nowhere near where other parcels are being delivered that day.
A parcel that has to be delivered by 10am but making the truck adjust to this one call would be more expensive then sending in a drone.
This will play out over the next few years. UPS are on the cutting edge of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of this technology and will adopt it accordingly.
As other people have pointed out, it isn’t just the financial gains or losses they will build into their model, it will be the impact on the community – if UPS drones are bugging everybody, people will choose, where possible, not to use UPS, etc.
I’m pleasantly pleased that the go-ahead has been given. There has been a lot of unsubstantiated claims that Trump has got rid of expensive regulations without any backup (i.e. did an oil company save money but polluted drinking water once they were allowed to dump waste water into a river, etc.). Here is a concrete example of regulations being made more amenable.
Interesting to see the variety of opinions. Sure, UPS drivers pick up, but that is almost only in office parks/business areas. I would venture to guess residential is 99% deliveries to, not pick-ups from. Cost? What does it cost to deliver a 2 pound item by drone? A couple pennies of electricity for charging?
They can deliver 24 hours a day.
I agree that noise could be an issue, but a friend had a small drone running here, within 10 feet, it was annoying. Out of that range, it became difficult to hear it. Granted it was a small one.
Personally, I want my own human transport drone! What fun that would be to get to work, and for short hops somewhere. I think the flying car may actually be here soon, but will be a drone style.
It’s not the cost of electricity. It’s maintenance costs. It will almost certainly cost a lot more to maintain 25 drones than a single delivery truck.
And there are a lot of pickups in residential areas. Where do you think ebay sellers are working from? And what about returns? I have 2 neighbors who run businesses out of their homes and get package pickups almost every day.
This is going to be niche and will always be a niche. The drivers do more than deliver packages. They also pick up packages and they vet the packages they pick up. The drones can only handle packages up to a certain size and weight, so UPS will still need truck routes to deliver larger packages. I doubt 100 drone deliveries will ever be cheaper than a single truck route. The likelihood of a damaged shipment is far higher with a drone and the potential liability is enormous. A single accident can cost UPS or their insurer over a million dollars if someone is killed or disabled for life. I would guess a 10 lb package falling from 1000′ is deadly.
“One can probably assume that this delivery mode will be a complimentary product, not a complete replacement. surprised that issuance of permits happened in spite of security concerns.”
Bingo and I was surprised too. Especially the part about no restrictions!
I believe that to mean “no additional restrictions”
There are aircraft restrictions around Chicago and Ohare (big cities and airports in general)
“I’m thinking, just like in the Matternet for the highland mountains, direct delivery of small goods to the 44th floor would be a standard use case of drone deliveries; not an exception.”
What makes you think people have a balcony?
Many buildings have none at all.
Those that have them only have them on the outside.
I once owned a condo in a 27 story building with no balconies. I rented it out.
I lived in a 9-flat with no balconies. Both Very typical in Chicago.
To those in this thread who think that the noise of a passing drone is a deal killer, have you ever walked down a busy urban street during daylight? Cars are loud, especially when there’s a bunch of them. So are trains, do you know anyone who choses to live near the elevated rail tracks? Of course you do. We can get used to anything, if the benefits are good enough.
I’m thinking, just like in the Matternet for the highland mountains, direct delivery of small goods to the 44th floor would be a standard use case of drone deliveries; not an exception. Residents may have to dedicate a couple square feet of balcony space for such a service, but if you can afford the 44th floor, you want your Amazon orders delivered in the hour, not next day. All it would require is a flat surface, perhaps with a special symbol that the “last foot” drone pilot (or AI) can easily recognize as a marked landing point. Some version of a modified circle, about 2 feet across, will almost certainly become a standard feature for anyone who wants delivery drones to land on their balcony, back porch, or flat roof. Apartment complexes will almost certainly be forced to provide for such a dedicated landing spot, if they wish to avoid drones landing wherever the resident wants them to land. For that matter, a smartphone with bluetooth could be placed out in the grassy side lawn, so that the drone could land right on top of it; so delivery doesn’t even have to be at your home address, but wherever you happen to be right now. I can see drones landing inside the middle of a music festival, carrying hot pizza and beer, directly to those who ordered it by triangulating their cell phone. We do live in interesting times.
And I bet in a few years that landing symbol will be on T shirts as a joke!
The math just doesn’t work.
Average number of deliveries per truck/day is 120. Replacing one truck would work out to a drone making a delivery every 6 minutes (round-tripping each delivery) in a 12 hour period. Good luck with that considering the reloading/re-fueling/re-charging between loads. Another entire set of re-handling facilities with much closer spacing would be required due to range considerations–so between the infeasibility of urban dense areas and wide-spread exurban deliveries, to replace one truck you are left with a small portion of suburban areas with a drone facility within a couple minutes of flight time of the customer.
Now figure that out for 16 million deliveries a day. And don’t forget the route pick-ups that are a big part of UPS’s business model.
Van delivery wouldn’t work out either, if you insisted on using existing numbers for the Tans Alaska pipeline…….
Drones allow small packages to be delivered VERY QUICKLY to (widely dispersed) end users. At a VERY HIGH granularity. Way higher than anything requiring big trucks and expensive humans to be directly involved.
For many classes of goods and purchases, to many people, that makes sense. For many other purchases, like bulk iron ore, oil from Prudhoe to Valdez, and/or a month’s worth of basics from Costco, it doesn’t.
It’s not about drones replacing container ships, pipelines and trucks. But rather about drones picking away at the deliveries where the existing means are at their least efficient compared to cheap, battery powered drones.
In this corner: Jeff Bezos flanked by body guards who used to be special forces
In the other corner: an exhausted new mom with strained peas in her hair, vomit on her shoulder, hasn’t slept in days — and FINALLY got her baby to sleep when that f’ing drone buzzed by outside….
The special forces guys have run away, they may be brave but they aren’t crazy.
The real win-win, is for Jeff and Mom to team up: Drone delivering serious (literally, if necessary) ordnance to the FIRE racketeers who have; entirely artificially, and at a cost to humanity greater than what any possible hot nuclear war could ever add up to; rendered most Westerners’ ability to build or buy something as trivial as a dwelling with sound insulation worthy of even a house mouse, beyond their reach.
And the forst drone decapitation in 5-4-3-2 ….
Can’t wait for this to be tried in the Bronx
Seems to have worked like a charm, delivering fireworks from Yemen to Saudi…. How much worse can The Bronx really be….
I am with Harry on this one, if you think the once per day stops made by noisy UPS trucks is annoying wait until you try to sit out by your pool or have a beer in your garden and even inside your house, UPS and other delivery firms were just green lighted to us an air carrier rule to have drones that can lift 50+ pounds for home delivery. The noise from them is unbelievable and they will be everywhere all day and night. This is going to rapidly become a quality of life issue in which what you have to say will mean NOTHING when you go up against corporate profits. I live in the heart of this town surrounded by businesses and thousands of apartments, and houses, it is the most densely populated part of the county. It will get the most drones. I would love to use them for target practice with a wrist rocket, but missing would likely mean breaking a window or windshield. It is going to scare wildlife, cause bees and wasps to attack, and is UTTERLY unnecessary. Maybe I will buy a laser.
I am guessing that the hospital (used in the test / demo case) already has a life-flight helicopter pad — and has already done everything it can to isolate the noise of aircraft landing / taking off. Ergo, a noisy drone is not going to change anything. It might lead to faster delivery of organ transplants or blood supplies.
What happens if one of these things tries to land in a residential area? More and more communities are implementing helicopter restrictions — especially at night. People vote, and those same people are UPS customers (and Amazon, and….)
Even if the tech makes it possible for UPS to anger its customers by filling the skies with drones, does not mean it will be a good idea to do so.
I didn’t see anything in the TechCrunch article nor the UPS press release about how (or if) these drones will operate in residential areas.
The FAA bureaucrats obsessed over BLOS navigation. It is not surprising that the dopes at the FAA didn’t think the other aspects through — its the FAA’s modus operandi.
Unlike federal bureaucrats, UPS has to deal with the public everyday. Amazon too. They will have to address the other aspects
You summed up some of my concerns. I can totally see deliveries from and to hubs, but a thousand drones in an innercity? Where do the parcels drop? Who signs for the delivery? What if it’s a high-value item? Or fragile? Or the fucking drone gets shot out of the sky, because if I was a teenager….this would be so much fun 🙂
Not to mention delivery trucks pick up packages too. Will drones do pickups? How will they vet the package?
The issues brought up by the naysayers are real – BUT they are missing the point that the 2nd order costs they bring up are dwarfed by the unbelievable cost-savings self-driving trucks, drones and deliveries entail. I mean that is almost the entire supply chain having an order-of-magnitude uptick in efficiency. Nothing is stopping it and the pace is accelerating.
In the short term it’s going to be way more expensive to use self driving trucks an drones. And even in the long term, it may not save much. Does it really save a lot to have 100 drone deliveries instead of a single truck route?
The cost savings aren’t just from not having to pay salaries, it flows through the entire supply chain to allow firms to beat competitors by having faster delivery and higher reliability and more predictable times – which allows clients also to carry less inventory, deliver faster to their customers, etc. It will be a step-change in efficiency.
Drones to medical facilities (helicopter pads–dedicated space involved).
Drones to African hospitals (Zipline example)–parachute drops and tree-climbers involved.
Drones to your house? Roof? Lawn? Tree? Pool?
Check out some animal vs. drone videos
It will be a while for that drone delivery to your house.
I was thinking the same thing. There’s a huge difference between a drop off at a helipad and a drop off on your front stoop.
Zipline drones are already delivering medical supplies across hospital systems in Rwanda and Ghana.
https://flyzipline.com
We’re just catching up.
And that’s in places where driver wages are much lower than anywhere in The West.
Drones doesn’t even really compete with humans. Perhaps slightly (but only slightly) exaggerated: Delivery drones are to human delivery drivers, what individual penicillin fungi are to human doctors.
The bullshit rebuttals to technology continue at an amazing pace.
Sheeesh.
I wonder how much the push for a higher minimum wage drives this technology.
The idea that driverless trucks will soon be hijacked to any significant degree is absurd.
How many times do we have to discuss such ridiculous idea?
Drones certainly easier than trucks. And that is why it will be delayed in cities and high crime areas.
In urban and rural areas, the only person who would take the drone would be the recipient. How hard is that to track?
And it won’t the recipients stealing them, Mish. They will just stake out high volume delivery areas and wait for them to show up and track them the last 50 yards. The trucks they will just force off the road and steal the cargo before the police can arrive.
Until they can put an ED-309 on them, the trucks will have to have security for the convoys, if a security person/truck if they don’t travel in convoys.
I will just predict it right now- it never really gets off the ground. I think criminals will specifically target these drones for capture and theft so fast it will make your head spin. Same for driverless rigs.
Those thing fly really high in between the shipping and delivery sites… If they could do it, I’d love to see the gymnastics involved. I’d worry more about getting tangled up with small single engine aircraft.
You just wait at the drop site and nab it. A truck you just force it to stop and rob whatever you like in the time available. Seriously, guys- people who run bike and scooter sharing services are learning the exact same things- things that aren’t watched by users get stolen, get vandalized etc.
Drones will get off the ground.
Tying up a 5 ton truck and an expensive, extraordinarily multipurpose 200 pound meatsack to do something as trivial as deliver a 1 ounce pack of smokes to someone, is simply too wasteful to not be challenged.
Replacing the meatsack with an also expensive sensor and computer array, as part of an already expensive truck full of expensive stuff, is much less clear cut.
But for the little stuff drones make sense for, human delivery isn’t a credible alternative even in the lowest of low wage countries.
Tech is way ahead of where they should be allowed. Let’s assign the liability for these things first.
How about Tech just see if they can get a cell phone call to not sound like crap about 1/3 of the time?
Who wants to be run over by the first truck? It will be your fault as you were not wearing the correct clothing for the vision system. The computer is NOT wrong.
Driving down the cost of things that will not improve peoples lives. What a fantastic accomplishment!
This came faster than I expected precisely because of security implications.
Then again, why should it matter. It’s not as if terrorist activity will be restricted by rules and regulations.
So why not approve?
Thus the FAA acted logically. Who couldda thunk?
Mish
Mish, did you really block me or just kept deleting my comments?
So, corporate profits outweigh human jobs, once again. And what about the implications for security, terrorism and nighttime disturbance? I’m not feeling particularly good about this.
Just think about 40000000 driverless autos all making a sharp left at full throttle some Thursday at rush hour. Networked, self steering vehicles represent a huge terror risk.
” corporate profits outweigh human jobs, once again”
Assuming free societies, the two go hand in hand. Always do. Improved efficiency, which is what “profits” (always temporary, btw in free societies) derive from; is what, and only what, allows for systemic expansion of payrolls.
Hence more “jobs”, for higher salaries, on the planet today, than back when the automobile hadn’t yet replaced the 8 to 10 delivery carriers who would otherwise have “jobs” carrying Trump around.
To the extent there is ANY observable deviation from the “profits go hand in hand with payrolls,” it is solely due to lack of freedom. Hence the solution is always nothing at all other than simply getting out of the way, and leaving people alone.