By Jared Gans
In December of 2013, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, announced on 60 minutes that Amazon would soon be able to make thirty-minute deliveries within a ten-mile radius via drones (small, pilotless aircrafts). Amazon has succeeded in creating operable delivery drones; however, that was only the first in a series of battles to revolutionize the delivery industry.
In order to operate legally, these drones must comply with Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) regulations. The FAA regulates and manages all facets of aviation within U.S. borders. The National Transportation Safety Board (“NTSB”) strengthened the FAA’s authority over drones by holding that the “unambiguous definition of ‘aircraft’ includes ‘any aircraft, manned or unmanned, large or small.’” This month, the FAA proposed regulations which state that “[o]perators of commercial drones must keep the devices in their eyesight and not fly over crowds of people[.]” When implemented, the drafted regulations will undergo revisions and public comment, a process that will last about two years. If these regulations are finalized, then Amazon Prime Air (one of the services wishing to use the delivery drones) will be completely inoperable.
These regulations would also be detrimental to companies other than Amazon. The Atlantic reports, “[t]he agency projects that within three years of the law becoming official, more than 7,000 businesses will obtain drone permits.” Furthermore, one estimate conducted by Business Insider has projected that this industry will generate ten billion dollars in new spending over the next decade.
The FAA has the difficult task of finding a balance between the competing goals of safety and facilitating the development of an emerging and futuristic industry. As more and more companies begin to use this technology, issues other than safety will arise. Some additional concerns of the FAA may include air traffic, chaos, and privacy. However, regulating the integration of new technology is not a new task for the FAA. The Internet presented (and still does) many dangers, but stunting its development would have prevented numerous socio-cultural and economic advancements. With any new area of technology, regulations must allow advancement while simultaneously acknowledging and trying to limit any potential dangers. It is likely that new means of privacy and safety protection must be developed to accommodate the emergence of drones, rather than attempting to fit them into a system that was not meant to encompass such technology.
The proposed regulations lean dramatically towards essentially disallowing the use of delivery drones for commercial purposes. Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president of global public policy, stated to ABC News, “[b]ased on the proposal, even then those rules wouldn’t allow Prime Air to operate in the United States.” If the FAA truly wishes to allow the industry of retail and e-commerce to revolutionize, they must reconsider these proposals and search for a more delicate balance.
Links from this Article:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amazons-jeff-bezos-looks-to-the-future/
http://www.ntsb.gov/Pages/default.aspx
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/faa-drone-regulations-blow-amazon/story?id=28997803
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-market-for-commercial-drones-2014-2
