Do City Delivery Drones Make Sense? No One Knows, but They’re Flying Over NYC
It’s a bird, it’s an airplane, it’s a six-propeller flying vehicle with a wingspan of almost eight feet.
Next year, delivery drones operated by British company Skyports will make daily weekday trips across New York’s East River, between the tip of Manhattan and a Brooklyn pier. Since the beginning of May, with a slight delay, drones have been transporting light goods for a New York health system. Currently, these loads essentially represent a few kilos of paper; Once the health system is satisfied that the system works, it should include non-hazardous and non-biological packages, such as light pharmaceuticals.
The drones are part of an experiment by two agencies in New York and New Jersey aimed at discovering how a relatively new and sometimes controversial aerial delivery technology might fit into a bustling urban environment and the airspace above. The pilot program will also attempt to answer a question that looms over the entire drone delivery industry: Where does it make sense?
“Will there be enough regular flights (1 to 2 per hour) for the client health system to find its true value? Stephan Pezdek, regional freight planning manager at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is managing the pilot, wrote in an email to WIRED. (The Port Authority declined to name the health care system for contractual reasons.) “Will deliveries get to their destination faster and within the financial limits of the current carriers they use? Will the community appreciate the work and not feel like it’s a disruption? All of this will inform our understanding of how the first corridor is shaping up.”
The Port Authority, which is also working with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCDEC) on this drone project, will also measure the impact of the deliveries on patient care, Pezdek says.
Globally, drone delivery is still in the experimental phase. Existing projects focus primarily on moving goods to rural or suburban areas, where gaps in road networks and services, as well as emptier skies, could make the technology better suited. Skyports has been delivering mail to remote areas of Scotland since 2023 and transporting goods to offshore wind turbines in Germany. US company Zipline claims to deliver to and from some 5,000 healthcare facilities across four continents; its oldest program delivers vaccines and blood products to Rwanda. In the United States, companies like Alphabet’s Wing and Amazon’s Prime Air are working to expand their delivery services in the South, with a focus on suburban areas surrounding Houston, Austin and Dallas, Texas.
For drones, dense cities present different challenges. First there is the question of security. New York City’s airspace is crowded and home to three international airports. In Manhattan alone, there are three public heliports. As of May 2023, nearly 9,000 helicopter flights took place over city land or water, according to data compiled by the New York City Council. The start date for this drone pilot program was pushed back in part because another experimental aviation technology, an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicle, was demonstrating its own first-of-its-kind flights from the same helipad.
This urban unrest leads to additional precautions. The pilot project was, as standard, approved by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which requires a certified drone pilot to supervise each flight. Each flight will take place on a fixed route, away from residential buildings. The project must obtain a weekly permit from the NYPD to operate, and delays in acquiring the first one have also led the city to push back its start date, said Amanda Kwan, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority. The agency also spoke with three local community councils before allowing the drones to take off.
