Amazon today announced that it will be bringing its drone delivery offerings to the U.K. and Italy by the end of 2024. The news also includes a third U.S. location, following Lockeford, California and College Station, Texas. No more specifics about the locations were announced — it’s promising to make those announcements in “the coming months.” The U.S. location will be a third state, joining California and Texas.
The company notes, “We are working closely with national regulators and international regulators, and communities in the EU, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S., to develop this program.” Once the feature is live in their location, customers can choose drone delivery from the drop-down for products weighing less than five pounds.
The new areas will be served by MK30, a new drone announced at last year’s Delivering the Future event. Per the company, the new drone has double the range of its predecessor, is quieter and capable of handling a broader range of weather conditions. The news also finds the company integrating drones more directly into its existing network of delivery vehicles that also includes vans, meaning that they’ll be operating out of the same facilities.
Amazon has a stated goal of delivering 500 million packages by the end of the decade — obviously those sort of numbers are going to require a far larger network. Doing so will require working closely with national and local governments to deal with regulations around this new kind of package delivery.
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