Google Subsidiary’s Drone Delivery Business is Cleared for Takeoff
A Google subsidiary has become the first drone operator to receive federal approval as an airline. That gives the subsidiary, Wing Aviation LLC, the legal authority to begin dropping products to paying customers, Bloomberg News reported.
Wing Aviation now has the same certifications that smaller airlines receive from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Transportation. Bloomberg reported that in the next few months, Wing plans to begin routine deliveries of small consumer items in two rural communities in Virginia, near the Virginia Tech campus where Wing has been conducting test flights. It can also apply for permission to expand its service to other regions.
“It’s an exciting moment for us to have earned the FAA’s approval to actually run a business with our technology,” Wing CEO James Ryan Burgess told Bloomberg. He called it “pivotal” both for his company and the drone industry in general.
Visions of coupling drone deliveries with last-mile warehousing in densely-populated cities are still some distance from reality, though. Drone regulations still don’t permit most flights over crowds and urban areas, a fact that limits where Wing can operate, Bloomberg reported.
However, Wing’s success paves the way—or clears a flight path—for other operators to follow. Burgess told Bloomberg that other drone companies applying for federal approvals should be able to move more quickly, now that his company and the FAA have worked through the issues of which rules apply to drone operators and which ones don’t.
Burgess said the process of applying to the FAA took months, and was “very rigorous and very thorough.” Air-carrier certification was needed because existing rules created strictly for drones don’t allow the kind of flights Wing envisioned, he told Bloomberg.
According to regulations issued in 2016, for example, drone operators are allowed to fly for hire, but have to do so within strict rules that prohibit flights outside of a ground operator’s eyesight. Similarly, the FAA has allowed automated flights over longer distances, but only as demonstrations.
In order for Wing to operate over longer ranges and actually charge for the service, it needed to become a full-fledged air carrier, Bloomberg reported. The FAA required Wing to create extensive manuals, training routines and a safety hierarchy, the same as any other air carrier would have to do.
Burgess said the FAA’s approval demonstrated the rapid maturation of drone technology.
“It shows these devices can be value-added in our communities,” he told Bloomberg. “They can be a faster, cleaner, less expensive way to transport things, while still adding to the safety of society.”
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