Amazon plans to expand its Prime Air drone delivery service to 500 cities and towns in the United States by the end of 2026. The move will put under-30-minute deliveries within reach of tens of millions of people. Current coverage will grow six times larger under the new plan.
Prime Air will launch soon in the Chicago, Illinois; Syracuse, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; and Boise, Idaho metro areas. Additional communities will follow later this year.
More Than a Decade of Development and Delays
Jeff Bezos first revealed Prime Air on 60 Minutes on December 1, 2013. He showed prototype drones and said the service could operate within four or five years. That forecast proved far too optimistic.
The FAA did not grant permission for testing in US airspace until 2015. Even then, the aircraft had to stay within sight of a pilot and observer. Amazon received a Part 135 air carrier certificate in 2020. That approval allowed packages to travel beyond an operator’s visual line of sight—two years after Bezos’ original deadline had already passed.
Problems inside the company slowed progress as well. Weeks after the 2020 approval, Amazon fired dozens of Prime Air employees during a reorganization and began exploring third-party manufacturers for some drone parts. By 2022 the company had tested more than two dozen prototype designs yet still had not started regular deliveries to US customers.
Early Launches and Limited Scale
Prime Air finally began service in December 2022. It delivered a small number of packages in Lockeford, California, and College Station, Texas. By May 2023 the program had completed just 100 deliveries—well short of its 10,000-delivery target for the year. Amazon closed the Lockeford site in April 2024 and moved focus to a new location in Tolleson, Arizona.
Safety Incidents and Investigations
Safety issues persisted after the newer MK30 drones entered service. Amazon temporarily stopped operations in Arizona and Texas in early 2025 after two test crashes at its Oregon facility. Those crashes were linked to altitude-sensor problems. Later that year two Prime Air drones hit the same construction crane in Arizona, causing extensive damage and a fire. The next month another MK30 severed an overhead internet cable in Texas, triggering another FAA investigation.
Prime Air is also under investigation in the UK after a drone crashed in a garden last month.
How the Service Works Today
Amazon’s drones can deliver packages within a 7.5-mile radius of its facilities. Nearly every item that weighs 5 pounds or less and fits inside a large shoebox can travel by air.
Prime Air boss David Carbon said in March that the company expects to complete 1 million drone deliveries this year. Amazon is also testing a new delivery mechanism that could handle a broader mix of products, including fragile items such as cartons of eggs and other perishables.