An Amazon delivery drone is on display at the BOS27 Robotics Innovation Hub in Westborough, Massachusetts, on November 10, 2022.
Joseph Prezioso | AFP | Getty Images
On a recent weekday morning, John Case heard a familiar hum outside his quiet suburban home in College Station, Texas. He immediately recognized it as one of AmazonThe company’s Prime Air drones fly through the delivery route to unload small packages of batteries, vitamins and dog treats.
“It sounds like a giant beehive,” Case, a semi-retired orthodontist, said in an interview. “You know it’s coming because it’s pretty loud.”
Case has lived in College Station for the past 40 years. Drones are a common sight when he and his wife take their regular walks around the neighborhood. Nurses, police officers and firefighters who work the night shift say it disrupts their daytime sleep, Case said.
The noise complaints are just the latest challenge for Amazon’s drone program, which has struggled to get off the ground since the company began testing deliveries in 2022. A combination of regulatory hurdles, missed deadlines and layoffs last year coincided with widespread efforts to reduce of costs by CEO Andy Jassy, has stopped the progress of the ambitious service, which was was arrested by by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos more than a decade ago.
College Station, located about 100 miles northwest of Houston, has been the main testing ground for Prime Air as Amazon tries to show it can deliver packages by drone to residents’ homes in less than an hour. Lockeford, California, south of Sacramento, was supposed to be another test market, but Amazon closed its operations there in April. The company is seeking approval by regulators to begin deliveries in Tolleson, Arizona, west of Phoenix.
As Amazon prepares to scale Prime Air and expand it to more regions, it faces another reason why that won’t be so easy. In a July letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, College Station Mayor John Nichols wrote that residents of his city, home to Texas A&M University, are tired of drones buzzing loudly near their homes.
“Since being spotted in College Station, residents in neighborhoods adjacent to Prime Air’s facilities have raised concerns with the City Council about drone noise levels, particularly during takeoff and landing, as well as during certain delivery operations,” wrote Nichols.
Nichols’ letter followed a proposal from Amazon to the FAA to allow the company to increase deliveries to 469 flights per day, from the current level of 200 flights per day. Amazon is asking for the ability to operate between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m., rather than being limited to daytime hours as the program currently is, and expanding the delivery area to up to 174 square miles around the company’s drone port, up from its current operating range of 44 square miles .
A month before Amazon’s request to the FAA, residents appealed to local lawmakers to intervene in the company’s expansion plans. At a city council meeting in June, Ralph Thomas Moore, whose neighborhood is “less than 500 feet from the launch pad,” played a recording of a chainsaw to illustrate the drones’ noise level.
If Amazon gets its wish, there will be up to 940 combined takeoffs and landings so the drones can deliver one package at a time, weighing no more than five kilograms, Moore said at the meeting.
“This is what Amazon is asking the FAA to approve,” he said. “This is a huge invasion of our personal space and has a significant impact on everyone in the neighbourhood.”
Bryan Woods, College Station city manager, said at the meeting that city officials tested a Prime Air drone and found it had noise levels between 47 and 61 decibels. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administrationchainsaws are typically measured at 125 decibels and heavy equipment at 95 to 110 decibels.
Prime Air is part of Amazon’s effort to find a faster, more cost-effective solution for the so-called last mile, or the part of delivery that brings the package from the warehouse to the customer’s doorstep. Proponents say drone delivery can potentially offset the cost of maintaining a fleet of delivery drivers while reducing the need for gas-guzzling delivery trucks. That means Amazon may never turn it into a service for the masses.
In May, Amazon hit a key milestone when the FAA said it would allow the company to fly its drones longer distances and without personnel on the ground monitoring each flight. Amazon foreshadowed the announcement and said it “lays the groundwork” for the service’s access to new markets.
Sam Stephenson, a spokesman for Amazon, told CNBC in a statement: “We value the College Station community and take local feedback into account where possible when making operational decisions about Prime Air. We are proud of the thousands of deliveries we have made and the hundreds of customers we deliver to.”
“Fantastic technology, wrong location”
Amina Alikhan likened drones to “a fly that comes from your ear over and over and you can’t make it stop.”
“It wakes us up and disrupts our ability to enjoy both our outdoor and indoor spaces,” said Alihan, an internal medicine doctor who lives with her husband in a neighborhood a few hundred feet from Amazon’s drone airport in College Station.
Case said his neighbors have complained that the sound of the drones makes it difficult to enjoy yard work or sitting on the patio. Sometimes it’s loud enough to be heard inside. Case said he wrote a letter to the College Station mayor and city council about the issue.
When the city agreed to become a test market for Amazon, “I don’t think anyone really knew how noisy and disruptive it would be,” Case said.
Others said drones fly alarmingly low. One resident, who serves as head of a local homeowners association, said Amazon told those in the neighborhood that the drones would fly 400 feet or higher while operating.
But drones fly over residences at 100 feet or less, which can make even lounging by the pool uncomfortable, said the person, who asked not to be identified to protect her privacy.
Amazon unveiled its latest delivery drone at the re:MARS conference in Las Vegas on June 5, 2019.
Amazon
The current iteration of Amazon’s delivery drone typically cruises at an altitude of 160 to 180 feet, according to data the company filed with the FAA.
Amazon said it plans to introduce a smaller, quieter drone, it is called MK30which it is is expected to begin operating in College Station and Phoenix once the company receives FAA approval.
Stephenson said the MK30 is “designed to almost halve the perceived noise of the drone.” It will also fly at a higher cruising altitude of between 180 and 377 feet above ground level, unless it is descending to drop a package, according to the FAA.
But many residents wanted Amazon to go one step further and leave their neighborhoods entirely. As concerns grew, Prime Air leaders held a July 24 Zoom meeting with College Station residents.
Matt McCardle, head of regulatory affairs and strategy for Prime Air, said at the meeting that the company will not renew its lease in College Station and will move elsewhere until October 2025, according to a recording obtained by CNBC.
Amazon’s Stephenson confirmed that the company is “looking at a variety of potential paths forward,” including the possibility of an alternate drone site.
The company also agreed to reduce the number of flights per hour, said College Station City Councilman Bob Yancy. He plans to propose that Amazon move the port by drone to the site of a former Macy’s store now owned by the city and located in a nearby shopping center.
In April, Amazon he said he plans to incorporate Prime Air on the same-day delivery network, rather than building stand-alone drone facilities. That’s what the company aims to do in the Phoenix area, where the launch site is located expected to be on the same site as an Amazon warehouse known as SAZ2. A few hundred feet from the facility is a large neighborhood called Roosevelt Park.
Yancy told the meeting that he still likes the program and appreciates being able to deliver toothbrushes, cookies and bottles of aspirin to his home within an hour.
He wants Prime Air to stay in College Station. But to make it work, he said, Amazon would have to make its drones less noisy or move them away from residents.
“I think the title of the program is — fantastic technology, wrong location,” Yancy said.
CLOCK: After a decade, Amazon has made 100 drone deliveries.
