Amazon switched on Prime Air drone deliveries in the Omaha metro on Wednesday, flying packages out of its Highway 370 fulfillment center in Papillion, Nebraska. It is the 11th Prime Air market in the United States and the first in Nebraska, landing four weeks after DroneXL reported the company was staffing up the site. Prime members pay $2.99 per drone delivery. Everyone else pays $4.99.
The Service Covers 7.5 Miles And 5 Pounds
Customers within 7.5 miles (12 km) of the Papillion fulfillment center can now order items weighing 5 pounds (2.3 kg) or less and have a drone drop them at home in under two hours, with Amazon saying some deliveries land in as little as 20 minutes. Prime members get free drone delivery on orders over $50, according to WOWT, the Omaha station that covered the launch.
The operation starts with 12 drones and is expected to grow to 30. Amazon says the site adds about 30 jobs and that no driver positions get cut. When DroneXL covered the Omaha plan on July 3, the clearest signal was the job board: ground-handler roles posted at $20 to $40 an hour. Four weeks later, the drones are flying. Companies really do staff up when a site is about to go live.
The size rules stay tight: besides the 5-pound cap, the package has to fit inside a shoebox. That covers phone chargers, medications, and batteries, and rules out most of what actually fills a shopping cart…