From SCDigest's On-Target E-Magazine
- March 12, 2014 -
Logistics News: Michigan Florist May Beat Amazon to the Punch in Drone Delivery
Ready to Continue Its Tests after Federal Judge Rules FAA Does Not Have Authority to Regulate Some Drone Use
SCDigest Editorial Staff
Amazon famously announced in late 2013 it was testing concepts for drone delivery (See Amazon Working on New Drone Delivery System, but Skeptics Abound) but a Michigan area florist may get there first.
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| The testing will prove out the drone delivery concept in terms of payload and range, Berry said, and that he didn't know when drone delivery might be available to the general public. |
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What Do You Say?
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FlowerDeliveryExpress.com, the online unit of Wesley Berry Flowers of Commerce Township in Michigan, was testing drone delivery in early February, but was ordered to stop by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Just this week, however, a Federal judge rules the FAA lacked the proper authority to ban some types of drone flights.
Federal administrative law judge Patrick Geraghty ruled that if he accepted the FAA's argument for regulating drones in a separate case, "a flight in the air of a paper airplane or a toy balsa wood glider could subject the operator" to FAA penalties.
That case involved a photographer who was fined for "reckless flying" after using a drone to shoot a promotional video he was making for a university in 2011.
His ruling only applies to flights below 400 feet, however. Nevertheless, it appears Wesley Barry can go back to his drone delivery testing.
It is not clear if the FAA will appeal the judge's ruling.
As Amazon noted at the time of its announcement, new FAA rules on commercial drones weighing less than 55 pounds are due out by November, though that is already late by more than three years from the initial promise date. There is a general feeling that this time the FAA will announce something late in the year or soon after. How restrictive those proposed rules will be is anybody's guess.
Amazon in late November said that it "hopes the FAA's rules will be in place as early as sometime in 2015. We will be ready at that time."
The FAA would first publish its proposed rules, have a period of public comment and review, and then issue final rules some months after that.
But for now it seems Berry is free to move forward.
(Transportation Management Article Continued Below)
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