This year, Amazon will begin drone deliveries in Lockeford, California

Depending on final regulatory approval, Amazon said it will begin delivering packages to customers by drone for the first time later this year.

Users in Lockeford, California, will be able to sign up to have thousands of items delivered to their houses by air, according to the company.

For years, Amazon has promised drone delivery, but there have been delays and claimed setbacks.

However, it stated that after Lockeford, it wanted to expand the service.

In a blog post, it stated, “The promise of drone delivery has often felt like science fiction.” However, Amazon customers in Lockeford, California, will be among the first to receive Prime Air deliveries later this year.

The drones will be trained to deliver packages to customers’ backyards in Lockeford, which has a population of around 4,000 people, according to Amazon.

They will be able to fly “beyond line of sight,” which means they will be able to avoid other aircraft, people, pets, and obstacles without the need for a visible observer.

The goal, according to the shop, is to deliver products to customers in less than an hour.

Amazon has been accused in the past of leveraging the promise of drone delivery as a headline-grabber to promote its Prime membership programme.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s former CEO and founder, committed in 2013 to fill the skies with a fleet of delivery drones within five years. In 2019, Amazon announced that it would begin delivering to customers via drone “within months.”

The company conducted an apparently successful experiment in Cambridge, UK, in December 2016. In 13 minutes, a delivery was delivered by drone.

Since then, it has tested drone delivery collaborations with Walmart in the United States and courier companies FedEx and UPS.

“Once onboarded, users in Lockeford would see Prime Air-eligible items on Amazon,” Amazon added, explaining how Prime Air deliveries will work. They will place an order as usual and obtain an estimated arrival time as well as an order status tracker.

“The drone will fly to the set delivery area, descend to the customer’s backyard, and hover at a safe height for these deliveries.” It will subsequently drop the payload securely and return to altitude. “