Amazon has picked the town of Darlington as the first site to launch drone deliveries for packages in the United Kingdom.
Amazon first revealed its plans to bring its drone delivery service overseas in 2023. At the time, the company said that it was targeting late 2024 to start drone deliveries in both the U.K. and Italy, beginning with a single site in each country before expanding. As it looks to put down roots in Darlington, Amazon will submit a planning application with local authorities to start building out flight operations, and will apply for authorization from the U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to fly drones in the airspace. After that process is complete, the company says, it will be able to start hiring employees and launching delivery drones.
“While there is still much work to do, this is an exciting step forward for Prime Air,” Amazon said in a January 28 blog post, adding that the company plans to work closely with the CAA to develop a regulatory framework, and to engage with the Darlington community to gather feedback.
Amazon appears to be continuing to experiment with drone deliveries outside of main cities. Darlington, in the northern English county of Durham, with deep roots in industrial production, has a population of around 110,000. Currently, in the U.S., the company offers the service in College Station, Texas (population 125,000) and the West Valley region of the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area (population 1.7 million). Amazon started offering same-day drone deliveries in the West Valley area in November 2024.
Amazon got the go-ahead from federal regulators in the U.S. to fly drones beyond the visual line of sight of pilots in May 2024, allowing it to scale the technology up across the country and expand its existing service areas.
