Amazon has just begun testing drone delivery in northern California, but it’s not all good news for a commercial drone industry struggling with employee reductions, shutdowns, acquisitions—and now more pushback from leery locals.
In 2013, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos famously predicted 30-minute drone delivery within five years. Yet Bezos was able to fly Star Trek actor William Shatner into space before he was able to deliver an Amazon package to a U.S. customer via drone. Today, widespread home parcel drop-offs, medical delivery, and automated infrastructure inspections remain a thing of the future—at least here in America.
Bezos couldn’t foresee regulators paralyzed by indecision over the right way to protect residents’ property and privacy rights. Now, a possible solution—“drone highways” above roadways—is emerging. State and federal transportation officials have proposed them, but red flags remain for the industry.
The drone industry’s struggles may surprise the casual observer who correctly perceives that drone capabilities have improved rapidly. Almost every outdoor venue, real estate company and wedding photographer has a drone operator at the ready for aerial footage. Dozens of companies have tested drone delivery, and last month, Walmart announced an expansion of its pilot program to seven cities. A few companies like Wing have made hundreds of thousands of deliveries in other countries, and U.S.-based Zipline delivers 75% of the national medical blood supply in Rwanda.
So, why, as a major drone trade publication noted recently, is the U.S. industry “facing a major crisis before it really takes off?”
The problem isn’t the technology. As federal researchers reported to Congress, it’s unclear who regulates drone operations. Commercial drones raise issues of local concern, like privacy and trespass laws, because they can fly anywhere, including in backyards and above sensitive locations like prisons, schools and stadiums. But aviation rules have traditionally been determined at the national level.
Within its initial drone guidelines in 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged that many state and local rules apply to drone operations. In 2017, the agency recruited state and local officials to discuss ways to protect residents without shutting down drone commerce. However, as the Washington Post reported, those negotiations quickly broke down in acrimony and dysfunction.
Also in 2017, the FAA organized an internal legal team to clarify and announce where federal airspace rules would end and state and local rules would begin. Five years later: silence. Meanwhile, anxiety within the industry is increasing as the FAA misses congressional deadlines for drone policies by years.
Some in the industry have instead urged the FAA to unilaterally invalidate state and local rules protecting landowners’ air rights and privacy. Curiously, a few months after industry negotiations with state and local officials broke down, someone at the FAA made major changes to its guidance. Most alarming for homeowners, in one section, a single word was quietly stripped: “trespass.” The FAA provided no explanation why it no longer believes trespass laws apply to unwanted drone flights.
This bizarre behavior by regulators—as well as the refusal of some drone companies to acknowledge legitimate concerns of landowners—means an unpredictable legal environment that slowly bleeds many drone startups of cash.
A national policy for aerial drone highways could alleviate much of the legal chaos in the near future and there are signs that it may happen. Last fall, the Federal Highway Administration released a report mentioning the creation of drone highways and leasing airspace over highways. Lawmakers in states like West Virginia, Ohio and Texas are now exploring the idea. Using the airspace over highways—millions of miles of unused air corridors typically owned or managed by transportation departments—would avoid legal issues raised by drones flying above backyards. It would also provide much-needed predictability for startup investors and passive revenue to federal and state governments.
As other countries race to commercialize rapid, emission-free drone deliveries, inspections and agriculture services, U.S. drone companies and regulators are largely watching from the sidelines. Hopefully, commercial drone policy will soon experience a smooth takeoff. But as Jeff Bezos—a brilliant prognosticator of customer and business trends—learned, too often, the regulatory process is a black box.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Brent Skorup is a senior research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, member of the Texas Urban Air Mobility advisory committee, and author of the new state-by-state report “Is Your State Ready for Drone Commerce?” Patricia Patnode is Mercatus program manager.
