It looks like Amazon is serious about their newest plan for speedy delivery.
Their Prime Air program has been discussed before, but it looks like Amazon is taking steps to launch the program in 2015, if they can get approval from the FAA to begin testing.
Prime Air’s goal is to speed up the already lightning fast Amazon delivery via the use of drones. If you haven’t heard of this before now, here is a quick video showing how it might work:
The idea is to offer a 30 minute delivery of Amazon purchases, making it by far the quickest way to shop online.
At the current point, Amazon is requesting permission from the FAA to test this idea. However, there are many factors in play that will need to be worked out revolving around safety exemptions to the FAA’s restriction on commercial use of drones. However, it looks like Amazon is really trying to make this a reality in the next generation of online shopping.
In addition to offering speedy delivery, the company claims that the use of drones will reduce shipping costs to the company, which they claim are currently $4 billion per year.
While this concept is fun and interesting, and there is no doubt it would be quite the sight to see a drone delivering your latest Amazon purchase, but how necessary is this? Have we really become a society where we need our purchases within 30 minutes?
I’m all for companies trying to enhance their services, but this is a program that might be a bit overboard. I’ll be curious to see the next steps, and eagerly await 2015 to see if it becomes a reality. This is no small undertaking – if any company can manage it though, it’s Amazon.
