Failure to launch

The year is 2013. You just finished watching House of Cards (WITH Kevin Spacey). The only Coronavirus you ever had was caused by drinking too many cervezas. And Jeff Bezos (whose wife was Mackenzie) just said that drones would be delivering packages to your door in 5 years during a 60 Minutes interview…

Fast-forward a decade, and Amazon drone deliveries are about as real as Boring Company tunnels solving traffic congestion in LA. Bezos managed to put a rocket in orbit before he figured out how to deliver a Pocket Rocket discrete mini vibe directly to your doorstep via drone.

Of course, Uncle Sam hasn’t done Amazon any solids…

The FAA has made it damn near impossible for Amazon and other logistics companies with bigger air forces than most first-world countries to make airborne deliveries.

It wasn’t until late 2022 that the administration finally signed off on Amazon testing in two small markets (in TX and CA).

And up until October of this year, the FAA wouldn’t even allow Prime Air to operate without parental supervision. I sh*t you not, up until a few weeks ago Amazon couldn’t fly its drones out of the eyesight of a “spotter.” Around the same time, the FAA also began allowing Prime Air drones to fly across roads. Name an organization that hates innovation more than the FAA. I’ll wait.

The regulatory delays put pressure on the Air division at Amazon. So it wasn’t exactly surprising that the massive company-wide layoffs in January impacted Prime Air as well.

And, last week, the drone delivery program was dealt yet another blow. One of Prime Air’s highest-ranking bosses has gone all f*ck that noise.

Sean Cassidy, Air’s director of flight ops and regulatory affairs, left the company last week… presumably to join the US armed forces, which have been making “deliveries” in the Middle East since the early-2000’s.