Amazon’s Prime Air is taking off in nearly 500 U.S. cities
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Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is significantly expanding Prime Air, its drone delivery service, with plans to reach nearly 500 US cities by the end of 2026 — roughly six times its current coverage. The expansion, which includes a return to Tolleson, Arizona, despite a drone collision there in October 2025, comes as Amazon emphasises safety features such as its "Detect-and-Avoid" system, onboard sensors, and operation under FAA Part 135 certification, the same framework used by commercial airlines.
The service will soon launch in 11 new locations across Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Nebraska, Louisiana, Michigan and Texas, adding to its current presence in seven states, with Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho and New York to follow. Amazon says it has already delivered hundreds of thousands of packages by drone this year, offering deliveries in as little as 30 minutes; Prime members get free delivery on orders over $50 (or pay $2.99 below that), while non-Prime customers pay $4.99, for items up to 5 pounds. The move intensifies competition with Walmart and Alphabet's Wing, which have been expanding a rival drone network and added seven new markets, including Phoenix and Philadelphia, in June.
- Amazon expanding Prime Air drone delivery to nearly 500 US cities by end-2026
- Service returns to Tolleson, Arizona, site of a 2025 drone crash
- Rivals Walmart and Alphabet's Wing are also scaling drone delivery networks
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Amazon's Prime Air is the company's drone delivery service, which uses small autonomous aircraft to drop off lightweight parcels at customers' homes, sometimes within half an hour of ordering. It operates under a US aviation licence known as FAA Part 135, the same category used by passenger airlines, and Amazon has built in sensors and an obstacle-detection system intended to help the drones avoid people, animals and other aircraft in flight.
The service currently covers a handful of US states and is now being scaled up sharply, with Amazon aiming to extend coverage across roughly six times as many cities within the next couple of years. It sits alongside Amazon's existing Prime membership scheme, with pricing and delivery speed used as selling points against traditional ground shipping.
Prime Air is not the only player in this space: retail giant Walmart and Google's parent company Alphabet, through its Wing subsidiary, run rival drone delivery operations that have also been expanding into new US cities. The wider push into drone delivery raises questions that go beyond convenience, including how regulators oversee low-altitude flights over residential areas and how safety incidents involving drones are handled as the technology becomes more widespread.
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