Tests for Amazon’s drone delivery program have become a regular fact of life for residents of College Station, Texas.
The town, which is home to Texas A&M University, is the testing ground for Amazon’s drone delivery program. The program started in 2022, and its main goal is to figure out how to use drones to fulfill some of the estimated 5.9 billion packages Amazon delivered in 2023. The idea, in theory at least, is that these unmanned drones would pick up an order for the usual household items and tchotchkes people order on Amazon and deposit them at their house. As CEO Andy Jassy told investors in a letter last year, the Prime Air delivery drones will eventually allow Amazon to deliver packages in under an hour. “It won’t start off being available for all sizes of packages and in all locations, but we believe it’ll be pervasive over time,” wrote Jassy in his annual shareholder letter. “Think about how the experience of ordering perishable items changes with sub-one-hour delivery?”
