The first time we learned of this we immediately thought, Oh no. Wing are certainly not going to like this this.
We mean, just think about it – drone maker Wing and online food delivery platform DoorDash have been fastly attached at the hip for nearly four years now, they have dragged each other through Queensland, Virginia, Georgia, Texas and North Carolina.
There has been Flytrex and Manna Air Delivery along the way; but it has mostly been Wing as the drone partner of choice for DoorDash.
Countless meeting with residents of locations in the cities and metros the two companies were looking to launch a delivery service.
And today, DoorDash just up and decided they want to do their own thing? That they have been building their own drone all this time and were working behind the scenes to have it approved by the Federal Aviation Administration?
You will understand if Wing are feeling a little miffed at being jilted like this. We do imagine it might not have been that bad, that Wing always knew DoorDash might have had this as the long-term goal – have their own drone fleet someday.
That day has arrived.
“Today, DoorDash announced that it has earned Part 135 air carrier certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and is launching DoorDash Air, our in-house drone program,” the company said in a statement.
“This certification means that DoorDash is authorised to operate as an air carrier and offer an even more deeply integrated drone delivery experience, opening up new possibilities for local businesses.”
FAA Part 135 certification is a significant regulatory and technical milestone. The process is rigorous and the standards are high: operators must pass a robust five-stage evaluation process verifying aircraft airworthiness, maintenance programs, and safety procedures.
The bar for safety and operational reliability is where it should be for operating over communities, and we're proud to become just the eighth drone operator to have earned this certificate. We're grateful to the FAA for their engagement throughout this process.
“We want drone delivery to work for any merchant, anywhere,” said Harrison Shih, Head of DoorDash Air.
“We're building the full stack to make that possible from the ground infrastructure to the drone itself, and the handoff systems that make it work together seamlessly.
“Advances in hardware, compute, and AI are creating extraordinary new capabilities for local commerce, and becoming a certified air carrier accelerates everything we're building.”
Having outsourced drone partners for what the company claim are ten billion lifetime orders and tens of thousands of drone deliveries completed to date, DoorDash says it has had enough practice and knows what it takes for drone delivery to work at scale, both on the ground and in the air, from more than.
The company added that the local businesses on its platform were growing the volume and variety of what they deliver, and in response, DoorDash was putting more technology into the hands of every merchant as part of its mission.
“Drone delivery means consumers can have what they need when they need it most, whether that’s essentials like cold medicine or time-sensitive items like a coffee or hot meal to a nurse finishing a 12-hour shift,” the company said.
“In 2025, drones delivered in an average of just 25 minutes based on our latest estimates. In fact, some participating locations in our drone partner pilots saw DoorDash order volume grow by roughly 30%, with the lift sustained across the nine weeks following the pilot launch.”
“Drone delivery also solves unique challenges for local commerce. For example, more than 20 percent of orders on the DoorDash platform in 2025 travelled three to five miles, but those orders took on average nearly 25 percent longer than shorter deliveries, largely because finding the right Dasher takes longer for mid-range trips.
“Routing mid-range deliveries to drones lets Dashers focus on the orders they often favour: shorter deliveries that can be done quickly, staying near a high concentration of merchants for optimal routing, and maximizing their earning potential by getting them to their next order faster.”
About the drone itself, DoorDash had this to say; “Similarly to our ground robot, Dot, we're designing and building our drone program inside DoorDash Labs, our in-house robotics and autonomy team. We're designing an aircraft purpose-built for the gaps we see in local commerce, and it complements the short- and long-range designs our partners are scaling.
“Our drone is also proudly American-designed and built, with the majority of components made right here in the U.S.”
DoorDash explained further.
“The aircraft is what everyone sees. The harder problem is the infrastructure and integration on the ground: real-time inventory reconciliation, universal handoff systems for drive-throughs, rooftops, or merchant back doors. That infrastructure layer is what makes drone delivery actually work at scale for merchants. We're building the complete end-to-end system, not just the aircraft. Solving hard physical-world problems for local businesses is our focus.”
DoorDash Air will be added to the DoorDash delivery network, with the provider confident that it will continue to grow, as more and more businesses realise the value of faster deliveries with the drones.
“As the network keeps growing, we expect drone delivery to scale right along with it, giving more merchants a faster way to reach the customers already ordering from them.
“Earning Part 135 certification and launching our first-party drone program is an important step years in the making, but it's only the beginning. For us it’s not just about building the drone, it’s just as much about running the airline: the routing, the safety systems, the operational layer that makes everything fly smoothly.”
And did we mention the second though we had after learning of this was how Amazon must feel, having tried to launch their own Prime Air fleet since 2013?