Amazon’s Drone Expansion Plans Spark Resistance From Texas Residents

On a recent weekday morning, John Case heard a familiar buzz outside his quiet suburban home in College Station, Texas. He immediately recognized it as one of the Amazon‘s Prime Air drones, which whizz along the delivery route to drop off small packages of batteries, vitamins and dog treats.

“It sounds like a giant hive of bees,” 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 40 years. Drones are a common sight when he and his wife go for their regular walks around the neighborhood. Nurses, police officers and firefighters who work nights talk about them interrupting their sleep during the day, Case said.

The noise complaints are just the latest challenge for Amazon’s drone program, which has been struggling to get off the ground since the company began testing deliveries in 2022. A mix of regulatory hurdles, missed deadlines and layoffs last year, coupled with CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts, have stalled progress on the ambitious service, conceived by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos more than a decade ago.

College Station, about 100 miles northwest of Houston, has been the main testbed for Prime Air, as Amazon seeks to demonstrate it can fly packages via unmanned aircraft to residents’ homes in less than an hour. Lockeford, California, south of Sacramento, was supposed to be another test market, but Amazon shuttered operations there in April. The company is seeking regulatory approval to begin deliveries in Tolleson, Arizona, west of Phoenix.

As Amazon prepares to ramp up Prime Air and expand it to more areas, it’s running into 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, have grown tired of drones buzzing loudly near their homes.

“Since the College Station location opened, residents in neighborhoods adjacent to the Prime Air facility have raised concerns with the City Council about drone noise levels, particularly during takeoff and landing, as well as some delivery operations,” Nichols wrote.

Nichols’ letter followed a proposal from Amazon to the FAA to allow the company to increase deliveries to 469 flights per day, up from its 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 daylight hours as it is today, and to expand its delivery area to 174 square miles around the company’s drone port, up from its current operating radius of 44 square miles.

A month before Amazon filed a request with the FAA, residents called on local lawmakers to weigh in on the company’s expansion plans. At a June City Council meeting, Ralph Thomas Moore, whose neighborhood is “less than 500 feet from the launch pad,” played a chainsaw clip to illustrate the noise level of drones.

If Amazon gets its wish, there would be up to 940 combined takeoffs and landings, all to allow the drones to deliver one package at a time, weighing no more than five pounds, 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 it has a significant impact on everyone in the neighborhood.”

Bryan Woods, College Station city manager, said at the meeting that city officials had tested a Prime Air drone and found it to have noise levels between 47 and 61 decibels. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, chainsaws are typically rated at 125 decibels and heavy equipment at 95 to 110 decibels.

Prime Air is part of Amazon’s effort to find a faster, more affordable solution for the so-called last mile, or the part of the delivery that gets a package from the warehouse to the customer’s door. Proponents say drone delivery can potentially offset the cost of maintaining a fleet of delivery drivers while reducing the need for gas-guzzling delivery vans. That’s assuming Amazon can ever turn it into a service for the masses.

In May, Amazon hit a major milestone when the FAA said it would allow the company to fly its delivery drones farther and without ground personnel observing each flight. Amazon heralded the announcement and said it “lays the groundwork” for the service to reach new markets.

Sam Stephenson, an Amazon spokesperson, told Vscek, “We value the College Station community and take local feedback into account wherever possible when making operational decisions for Prime Air. We are proud of the thousands of deliveries we have made and the hundreds of customers we deliver to.”

Amina Alikhan compared drones to “a fly that flies past your ear over and over again and you can’t get it to stop.”

“It’s waking us up and keeping us from fully enjoying our spaces both indoors and out,” said Alikhan, an internal medicine doctor who lives with her husband in a neighborhood a few hundred yards from Amazon’s drone airport in College Station.

Case said his neighbors have complained that the drone noise makes it difficult to enjoy yard work or sit on the deck. Sometimes it’s loud enough to be heard indoors. Case said he’s written a letter to the College Station mayor and city council about the issue.

When the city agreed to serve as a test market for Amazon, “I don’t think anyone really knew how noisy and disruptive it was going to be,” Case said.

Others said the drones were flying at alarming speeds. One resident who heads a local homeowners association said Amazon told neighborhood residents the drones would fly 400 feet or higher during operation.

But drones fly over residential properties at 100 feet or less, which can make even relaxing poolside uncomfortable, said the person, who asked not to be identified to preserve their privacy.

According to data the company provided to the FAA, the current model of Amazon’s delivery drone typically flies at an altitude of 160 to 180 feet.

Amazon has said it plans to introduce a smaller, quieter drone, called the MK30, that AND It is expected to begin operating in College Station and Phoenix once the company receives FAA approval.

Stephenson said the MK30 is “designed to reduce the perceived noise of the drone by nearly half.” It will also fly at a higher cruising altitude, between 180 and 377 feet above ground level, except when descending to drop a package, according to the FAA.

But many residents wanted Amazon to go a step further and get out of their neighborhoods altogether. As concerns mounted, Prime Air leaders held a Zoom meeting with College Station residents on July 24.

According to a recording obtained by Vscek, Matt McCardle, Prime Air’s head of regulatory affairs and strategy, said during the meeting that the company will not renew its College Station lease and will not move elsewhere by October 2025.

Amazon’s Stephenson confirmed that the company is “considering a number of possible paths forward,” including the possibility of an alternative drone site.

The company also agreed to reduce the number of flights per hour, said College Station City Council member Bob Yancy. He plans to propose that Amazon move its drone port to the site of a former Macy’s store that is now owned by the city and is in a nearby strip mall.

In April, Amazon said it planned to integrate Prime Air into its same-day delivery network, rather than building standalone drone facilities. That’s what the company plans to do in the Phoenix area, where its launch pad is planned to be on the same site as an Amazon warehouse known as SAZ2. A couple hundred feet from the facility is a major neighborhood called Roosevelt Park.

Yancy said during the meeting that he still enjoys the program and that he is happy to have toothbrushes, cookies and bottles of aspirin delivered to his home within an hour.

He wants Prime Air to stay in College Station. But for that to work, he said, Amazon will have to make its drones quieter or move them away from residents.

“I think the title of the show is: Great technology, wrong location,” Yancy said.

CLOCK: Ten years later, Amazon has made 100 drone deliveries.