Amazon’s
Prime Air drone delivery service may make its debut in India as early
as Diwali, according to some sources quoted by The Economic Times.
Amazon
will most likely begin its delivery service using drones or unmanned
aerial vehicles with trials in Mumbai and Bangalore as Amazon has its
warehouses in these cities. According to the Economic Times, the service
could start as early as Diwali, which begins towards the end of October
this year. Amazon hasn’t given any official comment on the same.
Amazon’s
Prime Air drone is basically an octo-copter, as it’s fitted with eight
rotors. According to Amazon, it is developing drones weighing less than
25kg which can travel at over 80 kmph. The drones can carry a package of
up to 2.26kg, which practically covers over 85 per cent of products
sold on Amazon. According to the sources, the packages having products
such as mobile phones and books will be delivered between 90mins to 3
hours to select customers.
At
the moment, Amazon cannot test the drones in the US, as it’s not
allowed there. Amazon has already put forth requests with the Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA), to be allowed permission to test its
delivery drones near Seattle. Currently, only hobbyists and model
aircraft enthusiasts are allowed to fly drones outdoors in the US.
Flying drones for commercial use is prohibited.
According
to the norms in India, drones aren’t allowed to be flown at an altitude
higher than 400ft and are banned from flying over security
establishments. At the moment, all UAV flying is done with permission
from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Ministry of
Defence (MoD). Also, for flying remote controlled aircrafts, you can
only use these frequencies: 27004 KHz, 27116 KHz, 27148 KHz, 27156 KHz
and 27228 KHz.
But
Mumbai has witnessed a drone delivery in the recent past. Back in May, a
pizza outlet had allegedly delivered a pizza using a quadrocopter. But
that did not go down well with the Mumbai Police authorities as they
sought explanation from the pizza outlet. “We are very sensitive towards
anything that flies in the sky with the help of remote control. We will
certainly ask the outlet’s administration as to why it did not inform
us before carrying out this experiment. We also seek full details
pertaining to the drone test,” Madhukar Pandey, Additional Police
Commissioner (Central Region) in whose jurisdiction the drone was flown,
had told PTI. The police later concluded that the delivery was nothing
but a publicity stunt and the outlet never really delivered a pizza.
At
the moment, it looks like an uphill task for Amazon, as far as getting
the relevant permissions to start drone delivery in Mumbai and Bangalore
by as early as October end. If Amazon is successful with drone
deliveries in India, it will be interesting to see how other e-tailers
would combat this move. We are already in the middle of the
Amazon-Flipkart battle of one-upmanship and drone deliveries will surely
take it to another level.
Posted by : Gizmeon
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