Amazon’s drones gain sounder flight plan

Hi everyone, it’s Matt Day in Seattle. Amazon recently gained approval to expand its drone delivery service. But first...Three things you ne [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Hi everyone, it’s Matt Day in Seattle. Amazon recently gained approval to expand its drone delivery service. But first... Three things you need to know today: • Intel sold 49% of an Irish venture to [Apollo Global for $11 billion]( • Hewlett Packard Enterprise reported [surprisingly strong AI server sales]( • Snowflake’s CEO is seeking AI deals [to stay competitive]( Getting off the ground Earlier this year, Amazon.com Inc. put its MK27-2 drone through its paces in simulated delivery operations at an airport in Pendleton, Oregon, that has been the main site for the 87-pound hexacopter’s testing. For these trials held in early April, Amazon’s drones had some company: Flying nearby at various points were small planes, helicopters and a hot air balloon, a fleet assembled to demonstrate how the drone’s automated avoidance software reacted to congested airspace. Inspectors from the Federal Aviation Administration watched the tests. The drone passed, said [Matt McCardle](bbg://people/profile/19269832), head of regulatory affairs for Amazon’s Prime Air. The FAA [subsequently authorized]( Amazon to fly beyond observers’ visual line of sight, a crucial step if the program is to graduate from the list of Jeff Bezos’ science projects to something Amazon can bolt on to its massive logistics network. Even with the expanded approval, “we’re still a ways away from having ubiquitous air deliveries nationwide,” said [Michael Huerta](bbg://people/profile/17362137), who led the FAA from late 2011 to 2017. “This is a significant step. But there are still a lot more steps to go.” Amazon, along with a handful of other commercial drone operators who have received beyond-visual-line-of-sight approval, flies under FAA authorization called Part 135. The companies are required to seek the regulator’s assent before beginning operations at new sites. That’s a well-worn process for the likes of Netjets and the other charter airlines that Part 135 was designed for. Drone operators, on the other hand, have to prove their ability to share airspace with manned aircraft, which the FAA says must retain the right-of-way, whether a passenger jet, a helicopter or a crop duster. So for now, Amazon’s beyond-visual-line-of-sight approval applies only to its drone delivery operation in and around College Station, Texas. A second early site for US delivery trials, in Lockeford, California, was shut down, though the company is seeking to start flying from a warehouse in Tolleson, near Phoenix. Amazon also intends to seek FAA approval for its upgraded MK30 drone design, which has yet to begin flight testing but Amazon says will have twice the range of the prior model. “This is a great milestone,” McCardle said. “Getting the new drone approved would be a great milestone. But there’s still a lot of work for us, and frankly the industry, to make sure we can get that to scale.” It’s been 11 years since Bezos went on CBS’s 60 Minutes to announce his company intended to [deliver parcels by drone]( within 30 minutes, making Amazon delivery as quick as a trip to the store. He mused that all this might be possible within five years. Since then, Amazon has poured billions into the effort to build a drone division from scratch, cycling through dozens of vehicle concepts as regulators hammered out the protocols for commercial drone operators. The Prime Air team lost its founding leader, who made way for a former Boeing Co. executive, and has endured layoffs, reorganizations, [crashes and questions about its safety protocols](. Bezos himself left Amazon in 2021, and some employees in recent years have questioned whether the drone program would survive the cost cutting rolled out by Bezos’ successor, Andy Jassy. Amazon says crashes and mishaps were expected when testing its new drones, and that no one was hurt during the flights. Spokespeople say the company is committed to the drone program, which aims to deliver 500 million parcels a year by air by 2030. When Huerta, the former FAA chief, left government service in 2017, he predicted that widespread drone delivery might only be five years off. “I’ve gotten away from making predictions,” he said this week.—[Matt Day](mailto:mday63@bloomberg.net) The big story Uganda has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past decade on biometric tools that document a person’s unique physical characteristics, such as their face, fingerprints and irises, to form the basis of a comprehensive identification system. While the system is central to many of the state’s everyday functions, it has also become a powerful mechanism for surveilling politicians,[journalists, human rights advocates and ordinary citizens.]( One to watch [Watch Ben Lerer, managing partner of Lerer Hippeau, interviewed on Bloomberg Television about why he thinks New York City is a great place for tech investments.]( Bloomberg Podcast Get fully charged Analytics startup AppsFlyer is talking to banks while it [weighs an initial public offering](. A group of OpenAI current and former employees are worried about retaliation for [speaking out about issues at the company](. The Amazon Labor Union has moved to affiliate [with the national Teamsters](. 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