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Niner niner, we’ve got our first drone airliner. UPS’s drone subsidiary announced yesterday that it was the first operator to receive a key certificate from the FAA. The approval clears the way for the parcel delivery company to start slinging packages via drone.
Party 135
UPS was awarded Part 135 Standard certification. That means nothing to you, but it’s a huge deal for anybody trying to scale commercial drone operations:
- With Part 135 certification, UPS can fly an unlimited amount of drones and carry cargo weighing more than the current limit of 55 pounds.
- It can also turn on Dark Mode, i.e. fly drones at night.
In the last six months, UPS has already booked more than 1,000 revenue-generating deliveries at a Raleigh, NC, hospital campus. At the same location last Friday, UPS became the first to fly a revenue-generating delivery “beyond visual line of sight.”
What’s next
Bala Ganesh, head of UPS’s Advanced Technology Group, told me the company plans to immediately “take this healthcare model and scale it.” To support this, UPS plans to set up a control center for nationwide operations and fly more drones beyond line of sight (which requires government approval). The eventual goal is to diversify services into consumer delivery.
Big picture: UPS owns 251 airplanes and leases/charters 298 more. This aviation experience—plus existing relationships with the FAA and DOT—is “a huge asset moving forward,” Ganesh said. With roughly 123,000 delivery vehicles/brown trucks and a recent investment in autonomous trucking startup TuSimple, its ground game ain’t too shabby either. “We’ve been around for 120 years,” Ganesh said, and the company's making tech investments so “we stay around for another 120.”
As the battle for the future of delivery heats up...
...remember two things:
- The drone space is crowded with Alphabet’s Wing, Amazon, Uber, and possibly Walmart. UPS just got a big boost.
- The government is here for it. In a statement, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao called UPS’s certification “a big step forward.”