The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally given Amazon the green light to test its new delivery drones.
Now that Amazon has received approval from the FAA it can test out the drones that it plans on using as part its upcoming delivery service, Amazon Prime Air.
Amazon wants to use the drones to speed up the delivery of products. It expects to reduce delivery times for products ordered from the company from days to just hours.
The company is one of thirty to be exempted from the FAA’s ban on commercial drone usage.
Amazon has been given permission to fly its drones under 400 feet and at a maximum speed of 100 miles per hour.
Last month the FAA approved a similar plan by Amazon to test drones, however, Amazon complained that the first round of approval took far too long. In addition, that approval was for an old prototype, which Amazon said was outdated.
FAA has revised its policies to speed up the review of such plans
The FAA has changed they way it approves submissions so that they do not become obsolete in the process, i.e. it has speeded it up.
The FAA said in a statement:
“The “summary grant” process the Federal Aviation Administration used last week to issue 30 Section 333 unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) is another example of how the agency is using a flexible regulatory approach to accommodate this rapidly evolving technology.
“The new approach will speed up Section 333 exemption approvals for many commercial UAS operators. Section 333 is the part of the 2012 FAA reauthorization law that lets the Secretary of Transportation determine if certain low-risk UAS operations can be authorized prior to finalizing the small UAS proposed rule published this February.
“Although the FAA still reviews each Section 333 petition individually, the agency can issue a summary grant when it finds it has already granted a previous exemption similar to the new request. Summary grants are far more efficient because they don’t need to repeat the analysis performed for the original exemption on which they are based. Summary grants are a tool the FAA can use in all exemption areas, not just UAS.”
