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.
This certification, officially titled FAA's "Part 135 Standard certification," offers far-reaching and broad license to companies who attain it - much more freedom than any commercial drone operation has had previously in the U.S. Here's a good summary of just how broad UPS can operate under its new designation:
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.
Obviously, it's a huge win for UPS Flight Forward, which is the dedicated UPS subsidiary the company announced it had formed back in July to focus entirely on building out the company's drone delivery business. But there's still a lot left to do before you can expect UPS drones to be a regular fixture, or even at all visible in the lives of the average American.
The courier outlined its next steps from here, which include expanding service to new hospitals and medial facilities, building out ground-based detection and avoidance systems for its drone fleets, building a central operation control facility and partnering with new drone makers to create different kinds of delivery drones for different payloads.