Lockeford Chosen By Amazon As One Of 1st Cities Where Prime Air Drone Delivery Will Be Offered
LOCKEFORD (CBS13) – A Central Valley city will be one of the first to get Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery service.
Lockeford residents will soon be able to get Amazon packages delivered by drone, the company announced on Monday.
Ryan Reposa is a Lockeford resident who is surprised to learn Amazon will be launching Prime Air in his hometown.
"It's odd," he said.
Amazon will be using the feedback from the community of just over 3,500 residents to help scale the drone program.
"Lockeford residents will play an important role in defining the future," Amazon said in a release.
The drones will only be able to carry a light payload, so it's unclear exactly what items will be delivered through this program. Amazon is saying that thousands of everyday items will be available, however.
Customer service representatives are already reaching out to some customers in Lockeford to identify potential landing sites.
"You wouldn't expect a small town to get priority over everybody else with the drones," Lockeford resident Edwin Juarez said.
Amazon says they still need final FAA approval over the actual flight paths their drones will be taking, but they do have an "air carrier" license already in place. The service is expected to begin later in 2022.
We had one question for residents who live in the small town. Why do they think Amazon chose them?
"Test it out in a small town [to] see if it works, and if it does, you expand to bigger cities," Juarez said.
"A nice practice area out here, I guess. There's a lot of open space. Downtown [Los Angeles], that's going to be a rough one. I hope they have good pilots," Reposa said.
There are a few questions Amazon is not ready to answer just yet, including where the drones will actually launch from and when specifically the service will begin, but as soon as we have those answers we will let you know.