DroneUp LLC is seeking United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval to extend its drone retail package delivery service from a network of Hubs in the Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) metro area. DroneUp’s Hubs would be located in established parking lots of commercial areas whose use is consistent with local zoning and land use requirements, such as shopping centres and large individual retailers. Under the proposed action, DroneUp would operate 11 Hubs initially, and a maximum of 30 Hubs throughout the DFW area in the next several years.
The package delivery operations would be conducted with DroneUp’s PRISM V2 Series, which is electric-powered and has a maximum takeoff weight of 55 pounds. The PRISM drones have a delivery range of five miles from each Hub. The maximum number of operations from each Hub would be 500 flights per day. Each flight would take a package to a customer delivery address before returning to the Hub. Operations would be conducted between 7 AM to 10 PM local time, typically seven days per week including holidays. There will be variability in the number of flights per day based on customer demand and weather conditions.
This Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) is available for a 30-day public comment period so that the FAA can receive feedback from members of the public who may be affected by DroneUp’s proposed operations.
Comments can be submitted by September 6, 2024 to 9-FAA-Drone-Environmental@faa.gov. The DroneUp DFW Draft EA should be referenced in the email subject line when sending comments. The FAA says comments, including personally identifiable information, may be made publicly available at any time.
In January, the FAA approved DroneUp to conduct Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) deliveries by drone in the United States.
At the end of July, the FAA authorised commercial drone flights without visual observers in the Dallas-area airspace. Authorisations given to Zipline International and Wing Aviation allow them to deliver packages. At the time, the agency said it expected to release several more authorisations.
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