Amazon Prime Air completes its first UK commercial drone delivery

By Matthew Griffin Future Transport 15th December 2016

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Brick and mortar retailers have always had an advantage over their online cousins when it comes to delivery times, walk in, buy your item, walk out, but on demand, real time drone deliveries will erode that advantage

Amazon announced today that his company has successfully trialled its Prime Air drone delivery service in Cambridge, UK, by delivering a TV streaming stick and bag of popcorn directly to the garden of a nearby customer and the announcement suggests that autonomous aerial delivery by drone could become a commercial reality much sooner than originally thought – albeit only for customers with huge gardens, who live close to the delivery depot, and want items weighing less than 2.6kg. For now…

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While the new drone delivery service will now be available seven days a week in the short term it’s only going to be available to two lucky customers, and because of flight restrictions the drones will only be able to fly during daylight hours – which in the UK in the middle of winter amounts to about half an hour a day and during clement weather, which again, in the UK in the middle of winter means that these things are inevitably grounded until the summer swings round! Joking aside Amazon says it hopes to expand the offer to “dozens” of customers in the coming months and that for those customers, Prime Air, as it’s known, will be available for no extra cost.

The company says the delivery, which took place last week, involved fully autonomous flight, with no human pilot involved in the process. The success was announced by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, who tweeted: “first ever #AmazonPrimeAir customer delivery is in the books. 13 min—click to delivery,” and while Amazon released a video of the flight no press were invited to witness the test.

First-ever #AmazonPrimeAir customer delivery is in the books. 13 min—click to delivery. Check out the video: https://t.co/Xl8HiQMA1S pic.twitter.com/5HGsmHvPlE

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 14, 2016

Amazon’s drone testing facility on the outskirts of Cambridge has been operating since summer 2015 and that was when the company invited the Civil Aviation Authority to witness its first test flight.

Government regulations in the UK are generally considered favourable to companies wanting to experiment with autonomous aircraft, but the restrictions still heavily limit what Amazon can test – Amazon is allowed to test drones that fly beyond line-of-sight in rural and suburban areas, conduct flights where one person operates multiple largely autonomous drones and drones that have sense-and-avoid technology.

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Amazon first announced its intention to deliver packages by drone back in 2013, in a lavishly produced special on US TV show 60 Minutes and at the time, Bezos suggested that the company would begin delivery in 2018, a timescale commentators called “hugely optimistic”, citing a number of concerns around theft, liability and safety. The latest limited trials suggest that Amazon still intends to hit that 2018 target, albeit by sidestepping many of the concerns through the limited nature of the rollout and Amazon isn’t alone in the field. 7-Eleven, UPS and many other companies are already conducting their own commercial drone flights, albeit that most of those are in the US.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.