The reality of you receiving package deliveries via a drone has taken another step toward becoming reality.
Wing, a subsidiary of Google, has secured FAA approval as a small airline, moving it closer to making package deliveries with drones.
The company is the first to secure such FAA approval, according to Bloomberg News.
However, last month, a pioneering use of drones to fly blood samples across a North Carolina hospital campus launched with FAA approval.
The short trips between WakeMed buildings in Raleigh mark the first time the FAA has allowed regular commercial flights of drones carrying products, according to UPS and drone company Matternet, which partnered with the hospital on the program.
“This is a turning point, and it’s an historic moment because this is the first FAA-sanctioned use of a (drone) for routine revenue-generating flights,” Bala Ganesh, vice president of UPS’ advanced technology group, said in an interview before the announcement.
Deliveries from Wing could begin in two Virginia communities over the next several months.
First in drones: WakeMed, partners kick off medical drone delivery program
“It’s an exciting moment for us to have earned the FAA’s approval to actually run a business with our technology,” Wing Chief Executive Officer James Ryan Burgess told Bloomberg, calling the FAA decision “pivotal” for his firm and the drone industry.
The company describes Project Wing as “an autonomous delivery drone service aiming to increase access to goods, reduce traffic congestion in cities, and help ease the CO2 emissions attributable to the transportation of goods. Wing is also developing an unmanned traffic management platform that will allow unmanned aircraft to navigate around other drones, manned aircraft, and other obstacles like trees, buildings and power lines.”
Bloomberg said certain restrictions on drone flights remain in place but the company can now charge for deliveries.
Read the full Bloomberg report online.
