How does Amazon get around BVLOS?
Tl;DR: No they can’t.
Link to the original article here
The short answer is that Amazon doesn’t “get around” Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), no one does. Amazon is subject to the same CIvil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulations worldwide as everyone else. While we can’t go behind-the-scenes on what’s happening at Amazon HQ, we can explain what is public knowledge and speculate at some of their major considerations and challenges.
Prime Air is the branch of Amazon overseeing drone delivery operations, which they describe on their website as, “a future delivery system from Amazon designed to safely get packages to customers in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles, also called drones.”
In June 2019, Amazon revealed their latest Prime Air package delivery drone design at their re:MARS Conference (Machine Learning, Automation, Robotics and Space), with the statement, “we expect to scale Prime Air both quickly and efficiently, delivering packages via drone to customers within months.”
To date, this has not happened. The reason for this is a bit complicated and is largely due to the regulatory path that is required for drone deliveries versus flying a drone recreationally.
