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The approval means Flytrex is one step closer to delivering packages to the yards of more than 82 million homes in the country.
Drone delivery startup Flytrex announced on Monday that its partner, Causey Aviation Unmanned, has received Standard Part 135 Air Carrier Certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA says, “Part 135 certification is the only path for small drones to carry the property of another for compensation beyond visual line of sight.”
The agency’s granting of the certificate signifies two distinct milestones for Causey and Flytrex. The first is that Causey is now officially part of an exclusive club. The FAA has only granted Part 135 certification to a handful of companies, including giants like Amazon (under its Prime Air division), Google (under Wing), and UPS.
The second milestone is that Causey’s certification now allows Flytrex to move on with its plans for launching drone deliveries across the United States. Currently, Flytrex operates in just five cities in two states—Texas and North Carolina—where it delivers everything from burgers to sushi to customers’ front or back yards.
“We live in an era of instant gratification, where consumers want to get their food or goods faster, more reliably, more economically and more sustainably—and drone delivery has risen to the occasion,” Flytrex CEO and cofounder Yariv Bash said in a statement Monday. “Flytrex’s continued success delivering to customers throughout North Carolina and Texas has put us ahead of the curve. With this certification, we look forward to bringing our super swift, sustainable and safe airborne delivery systems to every backyard across the U.S.”
On its website, Causey says its Part 135 Certificate from the FAA will allow Flytrex to make drone deliveries for companies in the retail, restaurant, and healthcare industries. Causey also claims that delivery by drone is 90% cheaper than delivery by ground-based vehicles and that the drone package delivery market is expected to grow from a $228 million market in 2022 to a $5.5 billion market by 2030. It expects to make 70 million drone deliveries in the United States by the end of this year, with that number increasing to 5 billion drone deliveries in North America by 2026.
