Amazon has resumed its drone delivery service in two U.S. test markets following a voluntary two-month pause, the online retail giant confirmed.

Prime Air operations have restarted in Tolleson, Arizona — a suburb of Phoenix — and College Station, Texas, the only U.S. locations where Amazon is currently testing the commercial service, the company said.

Amazon said it paused deliveries in January to address potential safety concerns with its latest drone model, the MK30. While there were no safety incidents during customer deliveries, flight data — particularly from the dust-prone Phoenix area — prompted engineers to roll out additional safeguards, it said.

The pause preceded a January Bloomberg report detailing several crashes involving the MK30 at Amazon’s drone testing facility in Pendleton, Oregon. Amazon said those incidents were unrelated to the decision to suspend operations.

Amazon is No. 1 in the Top 2000, Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American online retailers by annual ecommerce sales. It also ranks No. 3 in the Global Online Marketplaces Database. That database tracks the 100 largest such marketplaces by their annual gross merchandise value (GMV).

Sensor issue prompted drone software update

In a blog post announcing the drone service’s return, Amazon senior editor Alex Davies explained that environmental factors like dust could interfere with the MK30’s altitude sensor. Although rare, that interference could result in inaccurate readings, Davies wrote. This was one of the operational insights Amazon cited in its decision to proactively pause flights and enhance the fleet.

“Even though this is highly unlikely and we hadn’t encountered any actual safety issues in flights, we saw no reason to take risks,” Davies assessed. He added that the pause “is a normal part of our rigorous internal safety and engineering processes.”

In March, Amazon completed a software update to address the sensor issue and resumed deliveries after receiving Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval, Amazon spokesperson Av Zammit confirmed to Digital Commerce 360. The FAA had previously cleared the MK30 in October for commercial deliveries, including beyond a pilot’s visual line of sight.

Inside Amazon’s drone delivery testing program

According to Amazon, the MK30 can carry packages up to 5 pounds, fly in light rain, and operate within a range of about 7.5 miles. The company says the drone is lighter, quieter and flies roughly twice as far as its predecessor, the MK27-2.

Alongside FAA approval for customer deliveries with the MK30, Amazon began drone deliveries in November in Tolleson, west of Phoenix, adding to its existing operations in College Station, about 100 miles northwest of Houston. A third test site in Lockeford, California, where drone deliveries began in 2022, was shut down in April 2024.

Amazon says it can deliver thousands of items with its drones, with packages reaching customers in under an hour. Eligible customers can choose from thousands of items under 5 pounds, including household products, beauty items, office supplies, and other “everyday essentials,” its website says.

To prepare the MK30 for real-world service, Amazon has conducted more than 5,100 test flights totaling over 900 hours in the air, Davies said. The company says it pushes the drone beyond its limits in controlled settings to identify weaknesses, refine safety systems, and meet FAA certification requirements.

So far, as Amazon resumes drone delivery testing, tests have ranged from simulations of motor and propeller failures mid-flight to navigating environmental hazards such as dust, wind, and backyard clutter, Davies said. Amazon has even introduced unexpected obstacles — like toy cars and construction cranes — and flown helicopters and airplanes at the drone to evaluate its detect-and-avoid capabilities, he wrote.

Recent crashes at Oregon test site under scrutiny

The decision to pause deliveries in January came shortly before Bloomberg reported several drone crashes at Amazon’s Pendleton, Oregon, testing site.

In December, two MK30 drones crashed during flight tests in light rain, one of which caught fire after landing, according to Bloomberg. Amazon later identified a software issue related to rain as the cause.

In a separate incident in September, two drones collided midair during a simulated propeller failure test. According to a federal report cited by Bloomberg, the mishap occurred when a second test drone was mistakenly launched while the first was still airborne and en route to an alternate landing pad. An Amazon manager on site issued a verbal command to land the second drone, but the drones collided before the order could be carried out.

More recently, a crash occurred in February during testing at the same facility, CNBC reported. The National Transportation Safety Board reported that the drone sustained substantial damage in the incident.

While the events raised safety concerns, Zammit said the delivery pause was “unrelated to any test incidents.” The company has characterized the crashes as part of a broader strategy to stress-test the drone in controlled environments before scaling operations.

Amazon drone delivery remains in early stages

More than a decade after Jeff Bezos first introduced the concept of Amazon drone delivery, Prime Air remains in a limited testing phase.

The company has not provided a specific timeline for broader rollout, but it has set an ambitious long-term goal: Deliver 500 million packages per year by drone by the end of the decade.

In December, Amazon completed its first test flight in Italy and plans a drone-delivery expansion into the U.K.

In a blog post originally published in April 2024, Amazon left the door open to adding “further U.S. locations in 2025,” though that language was later removed from the post.

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