Direct to your door? Amazon

Amazon is about to start trials that will explore the safe use of drones for home deliveries.

The technology giant has been developing drones that can deliver its parcels to private addresses over a short distance as part of its Prime Air initiative.

It will now work with the government and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to develop better safety regulations and improve drone technology – the first tests of their kind in the UK.


Current regulations do not permit drone operators to lose line of sight of their device or operate over densely populated areas unless they have CAA permission.

Technology to overcome these restrictions will be explored in the new programme, which will also test sensor performance to help drones detect and avoid obstacles.

Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global innovation policy and communications said: “This strengthens our partnership with the UK and brings Amazon closer to our goal of using drones to safely deliver parcels in 30 minutes to customers in the UK and elsewhere around the world.”

The CAA’s policy director Tim Johnson said: “We want to enable the innovation that arises from the development of drone technology by safely integrating drones into the overall aviation system.

“These tests by Amazon will help inform our policy and future approach.”

Everyone’s a postman

Drones aren’t the only way Amazon is shaking up delivery. The US retail giant started trialing a service called Amazon Flex in Birmingham last week, which allows anyone to sign up to deliver packages.

Traditional delivery services use full-time employees to pick up packages at a big central depot and deliver them all the way to their destination. But Flex is using a “delivering when you want” approach which lets people earn between £13 and £15 an hour, grabbing packages from their local depot whenever suits them and taking them to nearby addresses.

This “last mile” of the delivery chain is notoriously hard to solve, and Amazon is betting that local labour pools can do the job.

Between drones and turning us all into posties, it looks like Amazon is taking even greater control of our online shopping baskets.

Read more: US opens ‘drone zones’ for a year of pioneer testing