Retail giant Amazon has promised to launch its Prime Air drone delivery service in about 500 ocations before the end of 2026, and the company is keen to make good on this promise.
This after reports that Amazon has officially launched its drone service in the Cleveland area last week.
The company announced that eligible customers within a 7.5-mile radius of Amazon's fulfilment centre in North Randall can now receive "ultrafast drone delivery to their home."
"If it's less than five pounds, fits in a large shoe box, and Amazon has it in our North Randall Fulfillment Centre, we can now deliver it to you by drone," explained Luke Davis, Prime Air operations manager.
"Especially if it's an item you need right away, we're excited to bring ultrafast drone delivery to the Cleveland area."
Last month, Amazon announced that Cleveland would be one of the cities included amid plans to expand Prime Air to more cities, including Chicago, Syracuse, Atlanta and Boise, "with more communities to come later this year."
The company added that 55 additional jobs are expected to be created at the North Randall site, which will have 21 drones available for the delivery service.
Amazon also has its eye on launching delivery drones in Central Massachusetts, but local residents in the targeted host community have been pushing back against the thought of their skies becoming a package delivery highway.
In Massachusetts, Amazon is looking to build a 6,800-square-foot Prime Air Drone Delivery Centre at its Westboro warehouse, marking the company’s first proposal of its kind in the Bay State.
Company representatives have stated that Westborough has served as a beacon of innovation, with Amazon’s robotics facility, and they are looking to add onto that legacy with drone delivery.
If Amazon gets the go-ahead in Westborough, the company would launch its MK30 delivery drone – a six-blade, five-foot-by-five-foot aircraft that can move at about 60 to 75 miles per hour – from its warehouse to homes within a 7.5-mile radius. That means Shrewsbury, Grafton, most of Southborough and parts of Marlborough and Worcester are all covered in the plan.
Customers could receive drone deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes, but even with this incentive, residents look like they are not so welcoming; sharing fears about potential disruptions to their quality of life – noise pollution, less privacy and safety risks.
But it seems local towns and cities cannot do much to control whether Amazon gets to conduct drone deliveries in their communities and neighbouring areas, with the Federal Aviation Administration holding exclusive oversight of national airspace and flight paths.
But the city Planning Board has been holding public hearings to gather the resident’s opinions about the prospects of a delivery drone hub in their neighbourhood.
Westborough resident Christine Farmer has pointed out that the FAA is “grappling with drone port regulations which are still unclear and not fully formed.”
Farmer is asking the town’s Select Board to request the Planning Board to reconsider Amazon’s special permit application to include what she described as a “full community, environmental, safety impact study” for the drone delivery centre.
“We are at the brink of a seminal moment for our town, our Commonwealth and New England at large,” Farmer told the Select Board on Tuesday.
“If Amazon moves forward, Westborough will become a regional drone hub, the epicentre of a new level of commercial drone activity.”
Another Westborough resident, Rod Jane said that communities in the hub’s vicinity would feel a fraction of the impact his town would if the plan turns into reality.
“The one thing is that Westborough gets 100 percent of that impact,” Jane said on Tuesday.
“This is a really big deal. You can hear those things at 100 feet or 200 feet; it doesn’t matter. You can hear drones; there’s no doubt about it.”
Fellow resident Wayne Lockhart suggested the Select Board consider geofencing, which he said would give the community “multiple options of allowance of flying and designated areas.”
Lockhart referred to how Gillette Stadium blocks drones from flying during major events.
“Like many things, pendulums swing very far in both directions,” the resident said, “and Amazon isn’t the only drone provider now or in the future.”
It is curious though, that while residents have expressed concerns about noise, there seems to be nobody who clearly articulated safety worries about having the MK30s above people’s home, because – let us put it loosely – Amazon’s rollout of its Prime Air service has not been entirely smooth sailing.
There is plenty of evidence online of drones dropping a package into the middle of a swimming pool, crashing into the side of a crane, and, in another, slamming into the side of an apartment building.
The FAA approved Amazon in 2024 to operate its delivery drones beyond a visual line of sight.
The company is still awaiting approval from the Aeronautics Division of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, which regulates landing areas and their interactions with other airspace users.
There is no set timeline yet for when the drones could take flight in Westborough. Tareq Wafaie, a member of Amazon’s economic development team, told the board the project is still in the approval and community outreach phase.
Amazon held a community meeting Sept. 23 at the DoubleTree in Westborough to hear from residents of Westborough and surrounding communities.
“We are always exploring new ways to get customers a wider selection at faster speeds,” an Amazon spokesperson said in a statement to Boston.com.
Amazon confirmed that it is working with Westborough to expand its drone delivery service.
The company did not respond to a question about whether another meeting is planned.
Amazon hopes to eventually make 1,000 deliveries a day from the facility, though its other operating sites currently average about 500 to 600 deliveries daily.
Wafaie said the drones are loudest during takeoff and landing, at about 65 decibels — comparable to traffic on a residential street and quieter than a garbage truck. At cruising altitude, he said, the sound is mostly unnoticeable indoors and is roughly comparable to an electric toothbrush heard at arm’s length outdoors.
He said the drones also have multiple safety fail-safes, including redundant propellers so they can still land safely if one fails. They also have “detect and avoid” cameras and sensors that automatically steer them away from objects in the air and downward-facing cameras that cancel a delivery and send the drone back to the station if something like a child, pet, or other obstacle enters the drop zone.
Wafaie also said the drones are designed with safety and privacy as the top priorities. The onboard cameras and sensors are for navigation and collision avoidance. He noted there are no live video cameras and all image data is encrypted. Amazon said that it does not sell or commercially collect data from these flights.
“Do they have cameras? Yes,” Wafaie said. But he said nobody is viewing the cameras.
He continued, “We do not sell data. We do not collect data. Privacy is just as important as safety to a company like Amazon, and so I just wanted to make that very clear upfront.”
But Planning Board chairwoman Hazel Nourse still had concerns.
“I’ve heard from a number of people in town that are concerned, obviously, about the peace and quiet — which we enjoy when being outdoors — by having drones flying overhead,” Nourse said. “And it’s not just the sound; it’s the drone itself. It just takes your eye and catches.”
Nourse asked if the city has any control over where drones can and cannot fly. In response, Wafaie said it would be very rare to impose no-fly zones, noting that the FAA controls airspace.
“What I’m hearing is we have no control,” said John Gelcich, vice-chair of the Planning Board.