New Regulations Will Unshackle The Drone Delivery Market

Forbes

07-08-2025

On Tuesday, August 5th, the U.S. Transportation Secretary unveiled a new proposed rule – Beyond Visual Line of Sight – for managing drone deliveries. This proposed rule is intended to provide a way to scale industrial drone operations safely.
Existing rules, unless the Federal Aviation Agency has granted an exemption, require a drone operator to be within line of sight. This regulation severely hampers the drone delivery industry. An early use case from 2020 illustrates the limitations. A North Carolina hospital chain developed a couple of routes that were feasible despite the line-of-sight limitations. These routes originated at a facility on one side of an Interstate and made deliveries to larger clinics located only a couple of hundred yards away on the other side of an interstate.
In contrast, distribution centers are typically located in an industrial park several miles from suburban or urban centers. Deliveries might also originate from stores. But unless an operator is in a tall structure, the drone typically moves out of the operator's sight as it crosses the first line of houses.
The proposed rule spells out the circumstances under which drones can be used. These out-of-sight flights will only be allowed at an altitude of 400 feet or less. Unmanned aerial vehicles are required to have collision-avoidance software. The total weight of the drone, including payload, is capped at 1,320 pounds. Operators would be allowed to fly their drones over people, but not during large, open-air gatherings, such as concerts or sporting events. There are also precautions to ensure they don't disrupt aviation and cause problems around airports. Drone operators would be required to obtain certification and pass background checks before conducting beyond-line-of-sight operations.
Despite the existing regulations, the industry has continued to develop since Amazon announced its intention to use drones for deliveries in 2013. This has been possible because of the use of drones for non-delivery use cases – like inspecting utility towers and wires. Development has also occurred because drone deliveries have occurred in other regions of the world where the road infrastructure was not developed, and governments were more willing to grant line-of-sight exceptions. But even in the U.S., the federal government had already approved 657 waivers to allow companies such as Amazon and Walmart, and their partners, to test and develop the technology.
The Industry Has Made Significant Progress
Among retailers, Walmart, the World's largest retailer, leads the pack when it comes to deliveries using unmanned aerial vehicles. Walmart has completed over 150,000 drone deliveries since 2021. Walmart works with two drone delivery companies – Wing and Zipline.
Wing appears to be the more significant partner. On June 5th, Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. (Google), announced that by June of 2026, drone deliveries originating from Walmart Supercenters would be available across several major U.S. metros, including Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa.
Walmart uses Wing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where Wing does deliveries from 18 Supercenters. Wing and Walmart, a press release continues, are completing thousands of weekly deliveries. The average fulfillment time is under 19 minutes. Zipline has also worked with Walmart to service the Dallas-Fort Worth area, as well as a site in Pea Ridge, Arkansas, and sites in North Texas.
Process and Technology
The process is somewhat different depending on whether Zipline or Wing is the drone provider. But generically, the process is described below.
The delivery process starts with the customer. Using the Walmart app, a customer can choose drone delivery for orders that are within six miles of an eligible drone delivery store. These deliveries can be for a single product or for a combination of select items with a total combined weight of 2.4 pounds to 10 pounds (depending on the drone partner). Deliveries take up to 30 minutes to arrive.
The delivery fee is only $3.99. It seems probable that Walmart is subsidizing these low-cost drone deliveries to lower costs through scale and develop customer loyalty for these types of deliveries.
Drone delivery availability is based on a customer's delivery address, local weather conditions (although drones can make deliveries in the rain), feasibility (is there a landing place for the package?), and each drone delivery vendor's terms of service. Deliveries are made to a predetermined location - the front yard, backyard, or driveway. Customers must agree to keep their delivery area clear of people and pets
The Walmart app alerts a customer when their cart reaches the drone delivery weight and volume limits. Users can track the delivery in real time.
Routing, if done optimally, would be complicated. Walmart would need to understand which of its products are eligible to travel by drones and then, even if eligible to travel by drone, decide whether it still makes more sense to deliver by van. If a van is already scheduled to reach a nearby domicile and the goods can be loaded in time, van delivery would be less costly.
Then comes fulfillment. When an order comes in, an employee picks the purchased item from the shelf and brings it to the packing station. Goods are packed in a special drone delivery box. Once packed, goods are moved to an outside launch pad. There are safety protocols associated with attaching the goods to the drone. The takeoff is from charging stations at the store. There are fences around these stations.
The drones are battery-powered and thus do not have carbon emissions. The drones themselves are equipped with navigation and collision avoidance. There is a control tower where the drone delivery provider monitors multiple deliveries simultaneously.
Zipline has also developed a safety technology called Unmanned Aircraft System Management that has been approved by the FAA. Every time a commercial plane gets ready to take off, the pilot talks with an air traffic controller to make sure it's safe - that the flight won't overlap with another plane's route.
Drones aren't managed by air traffic controllers. Instead, professional drone operators work together to fly safely. This can be as manual as calling or texting each other about upcoming flights that are nearby. But as drone delivery rapidly expands, a better way is needed. Zipline's UTM is designed to automate safe communication and operations between Zipline and other drone operators.
There is also AI technology used for the package that descends from the drone to the customer delivery location. Zipline calls these packages 'Zips'. The Zip is also autonomous and controls itself as it descends. The Zip has a rear propeller to move it fore and aft and side thrusters. This allows the Zip to navigate even on windy days with dinner plate accuracy. The package descends from about 300 feet. Between the height at which the drone travels and the fact that propellers are designed to be quiet, the deliveries are quieter than those made by vans.
Winners and Losers
While Wing is the main partner for Walmart, Zipline is the largest drone delivery company in the world. In April of 2024, the company announced they had completed 1 million commercial drone deliveries. In March of 2025, Zipline announced that its drones had flown over 100 million miles.
While the new regulations will make it easier for large US retailers to work with Zipline or Walmart, small retailers may benefit even more. And Zipline appears better poised to capitalize on this. Small retailers would integrate into a Zipline marketplace, and deliveries from this marketplace would be made on behalf of multiple retailers.
Conclusion
Clearly, the new rules will be good for the drone delivery market. But this is not a done deal. For the next 60 days, interested parties can comment and raise objections to the proposed regulation. While the Trump administration has shown great interest in moving forward quickly on this, once a Beyond Visual Line of Sight rule is announced, lawsuits to challenge the ruling could occur. It would not be surprising, for example, for these suits to originate from road-based delivery companies or industry groups supporting the package delivery industry.