Amazon announced a major expansion of its Prime Air drone delivery service on Wednesday, revealing plans to reach nearly 500 US cities and towns by the end of 2026, roughly six times its current footprint.
The company said Prime Air will launch in 11 new locations: Tolleson, Arizona; Ruskin, Florida; Kansas City, Kansas; Papillion, Nebraska; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Hazel Park and Pontiac, Michigan; and Richmond, San Antonio, Richardson, and Waco, Texas. Additional markets in Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho, and New York are also planned.
The expansion comes as Amazon projects Prime Air will hit 1 million deliveries this year. The company said the service has already delivered hundreds of thousands of packages by drone so far in 2026. Vice president David Carbon called Prime Air the “highest demand drone delivery service in the industry.”
The return to Tolleson is notable following a drone accident there in October 2025, when two drones collided with a crane boom. Amazon’s drones have also drawn scrutiny after incidents involving clipping an internet cable and crashing into a garden and an apartment building. The company reiterated its focus on safety, highlighting its Detect-and-Avoid system and FAA Part 135 certification, the same regulatory framework used by commercial air carriers.
Prime members receive free drone delivery on eligible orders of $50 or more, with a $2.99 fee for orders under $50. Non-Prime customers pay $4.99. Nearly all items weighing 5 pounds or less can be delivered by drone, with most arrivals within an hour of checkout.
The move intensifies competition in the drone delivery space. Walmart and Google parent Alphabet’s Wing have been building what they describe as the largest US drone delivery network, adding seven new markets including Phoenix, Philadelphia, and the Bay Area in June. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has set a long-term target of delivering 500 million packages annually by drone by 2030.
Amazon’s push into autonomous delivery comes as the company reported its fastest cloud growth in over four years, with AWS posting $42.2 billion in quarterly revenue. The drone expansion is part of Amazon’s broader strategy to cut delivery times across its logistics network, which has already completed more than 500 million same-day packages this year.
Sources: TechCrunch; CNBC; Amazon announcement
discussion