A drone hovers over your home, slowly lowering itself onto the lawn and unveiling the order you placed just minutes ago: a bar of chocolate.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s actually happening in the Bay Area, San Francisco, as part of a trial that drone technology company Matternet is conducting in Mountain View, California. Andreas Raptopoulos, founder and CEO of Matternet, said this pilot is the first step to a larger commercial deployment.
Advances in technology, regulatory approvals, and the need for speed have helped pave the way for drone deliveries in the last mile, the notoriously expensive and complex part of the supply chain that delivers goods to consumers’ doorsteps.
“The industry is getting its head around this new modality,” Raptopoulos told Tech.co in an interview. Companies are “leaning in […] to figure out, how can they have a drone strategy?”
Retail giants, such as Walmart and Amazon, have forged partnerships with drone technology companies and developed in-house programs to fulfill last-mile deliveries, touting the benefits of speedy transport.
But drones have their limitations, too. The unmanned aircraft aren’t practical for long-haul applications or large, heavy freight. And without a change in U.S. regulations, permissions for drone deliveries may remain piecemeal, hindering the logistics method’s ability to scale in the last mile.
From Healthcare to Snacks
Many drone deliveries began with B2B applications, particularly in healthcare systems. Zipline started by delivering blood and medical products in Rwanda in 2016 and has since expanded to food, retail, and agricultural products.
Matternet, founded in 2011, similarly started with humanitarian and medical applications in countries like Haiti and Bhutan. The drone tech company began operations in the U.S. in 2019, partnering with UPS to move samples across a medical campus in North Carolina in less than five minutes. The project has since moved beyond the pilot phase, having run for years.
For companies to execute drone deliveries in the United States, they need to receive a part 135 certificate, which permits “small drones to carry the property of another for compensation beyond visual line of sight,” per the Federal Aviation Administration.
As the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) began granting those certifications in 2019, “that really created a massive uptick in drone delivery here in the U.S.,” Raptopoulos said.
In fact, Walmart said from the start of its drone deliveries in 2021 through last June, the retail behemoth had completed more than 30,000 drone deliveries.
The promise lies in drones’ efficiency and speedy delivery – a factor that’s become table stakes in today’s fast-paced last-mile logistics. Amazon has now delivered thousands of items to customers via drone in less than an hour.
Drones don’t have to fight road traffic, and they travel as the crow flies, “enabling deliveries in minutes rather than hours for time-sensitive items,” said Michael Healander, co-founder, president, and CEO of Airspace Link, a software company focused on drone airspace management technology.
Drones are especially useful for food shipments, which are lightweight and offer the best customer experience when delivered quickly.
“It’s kind of crazy that we use a 3,000- to 4,000-pound vehicle to transport a three-pound lunch” – Andreas Raptopoulos, founder and CEO of Matternet
Logistics Statistics for 2025 You Need to Know
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Check out our guide for more insights on what’s happening in the industry.
Last June on World UFO Day, Subway conducted a stunt in which it delivered footlong subs and cookies by drone in Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, and Ohio. That same month, Hostess launched a campaign called Joy Drops. The consumer goods company partnered with DroneUp to deliver Hostess snacks, Donettes, and Twinkies via drone in cities in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.
Subway experimented with promotional drone deliveries in 2024
For the companies using drones, the unmanned aircraft emit zero direct emissions, which helps further their sustainability goals, Healander said.
Marcella Kaplan, research assistant professor in the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said drones are particularly useful in rural and remote areas, where it can be costly to execute last-mile deliveries due to low population density and long distances between locations.
Experts said the biggest potential is not in replacing trucks and vans in the last mile, but to aid the supply chain by combining multiple modes of transit.
“Some packages can be delivered via truck and some can be delivered via drone,” Kaplan said. “There could also be a truck-drone system where the drone travels on top of the truck, and then both the drone and the truck can make their deliveries and then come back together.”
The Sky’s Not the Only Limit
The use of drones for home delivery is still relatively new. Matternet, for one, only started home delivery trials last year.
“If you compare it as a percentage of orders that it fulfills versus the traditional methods, it’s really tiny,” Raptopoulos said of drones.
Various factors prevent drone logistics from scaling to myriad products and markets. While a small snack box or sub sandwich could be an ideal use case for a drone, carrying heavier or bulkier items isn’t possible.
Weather conditions can impede a drone’s ability to navigate autonomously. Amazon experienced this when it tested drones in Phoenix and discovered that dust interfered with readings on the drone’s altitude sensor.
Public acceptance is mixed, with some communities voicing privacy or noise concerns, although Raptopoulos said Matternet has so far only had positive feedback on its home delivery program.
Crowded airspace in urban areas also presents obstacles for drones. “It is challenging for them to fly in areas with tall buildings due to communication interference, and there isn’t a place for them to drop the package, like a person’s yard,” Kaplan said.
For retailers and tech companies, investments in drone deliveries need to be worth the payoff. Drones need charging stations, maintenance facilities and vertiports (similar to a heliport), which “requires significant investment and coordination across stakeholders,” Healander said. Drone companies need to be able to produce aircraft and technology at scale to reduce costs, Raptopoulos said, and that requires more widespread usage of drones.
Over time, drones could become more cost effective than other transport modes, according to a McKinsey analysis. Unit costs for one package and 20 drones per observer is estimated to total $1.80. An electric car, meanwhile, is about $3 for 5 packages and one driver.
A Matternet drone makes a delivery via a tether to a customer. Image courtesy of Matternet
Drone’s Path Forward
Drone tech companies, along with their retail partners, have made great strides in drone delivery since the inception of the last-mile logistics method. Walmart now offers drone delivery for up to 75% of the Dallas-Fort Worth population. The retailer’s national network of almost 4,700 stores within 10 miles of 90% of the US population gives it the ability to scale drone operations to more markets, if or when it chooses to do so.
Likewise, “Amazon has the scale to do well in this market,” Kaplan said. Although the retailer temporarily paused drone deliveries early this year, it has since resumed and continues to develop its Prime Air drone program. Amazon has stated big ambitions to deliver 500 million packages annually by drone by the end of the decade.
Some companies, such as Airspace Link, have also developed software to solve airspace crowding issues and handle traffic management. Its platform maps airspace restrictions and ground-based risks to develop safe and compliant flight patterns, Healander said.
The biggest remaining hurdle, according to drone experts, is U.S. regulation. Currently, the FAA authorizes operations beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) on a case-by-case basis using waivers.
“Until regulation allows for more widespread service, scaling drone operations will be challenging,” – Marcella Kaplan, research assistant professor in the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
That regulatory change may be on the horizon. Part 108 would standardize BVLOS operations. Instead of approving individual flights, the FAA could authorize operators and drones, according to the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Raptopoulos anticipates the notice around Part 108 to be published this year, with it becoming a rule during this current administration cycle. Healander also expects “a more mature regulatory framework” by 2026 or 2027, if not sooner.
Once Part 108 is in place, the industry would “finally have the whole regulatory framework that we need for [drone deliveries] to happen at scale,” Raptopoulos said. Then, over the next two to three years, “America will be off to the races.”