Amazon Planning Hundreds of Thousands of Drone Flights as Some Residents Are Already Upset
by John Gage
(Picture credit Amazon/WOWT)
Amazon is facing backlash over a new drone delivery program it unveiled in the past week in the Omaha metro. Residents within the 7.5 million radius of Highway 370 took to social media to complain about the size, noisiness, and privacy concerns with drones flying over and by their homes.
Most of the online complaints revolved around how noisy the drones are. “Saw one just now outside my home,” one resident on Facebook wrote. “They’re louder than I was thinking they would be.”
“It sounded like a small plane,” another added. Other complaints were more dystopian, with one resident saying they felt like they were living in “the Matrix.”
In response to noise complaints, Amazon told The Sun that “fewer than 1% of those inquiries about Prime Air have been related to noise.”
“The level of sound during drop-off is quieter than an idling delivery truck parked curbside or a passing passenger car,” a company spokesperson claimed. “During flight at altitude, the sound is comparable to an electric toothbrush or a window fan on low, and typically can’t be heard indoors.”
Currently, Amazon is only operating a dozen drones. But in other places where they have implemented the program, they have sought to expand it. According to the company’s filings with the Federal Aviation Administration, Amazon plans on 365,000 annual flights from its Papillion facility.
The company plans to operate its flights 365 days a year between 6 a.m. and 10:30 p.m. every day. The company said it will be flying drones within a 174-square-mile area.
Resistance in Texas
Omaha is the 11th Prime Air location, with similar programs in Kansas City, Phoenix, and Dallas. New programs are coming to Chicago, Cleveland, and Boise soon.
In College Station, Texas, the company pulled its program after backlash from residents,
“It was like your neighbor runs their leaf blower all day long,” Mark Smith, a resident of College Station, told Wired. “It was just incessant.” Residents of the city took to calling the drones “flying chainsaws.”
If the program was still in operation, Amazon was within its rights to fly a drone on average every 58 seconds for 15 hours a day over Smith’s house.
The program collapsed after local officials and citizens organized to prevent Amazon from expanding its drone program. Around 150 complaints rolled in opposing the program, with complaints ranging from parents concerned about their teenage daughter fearing to swim in their backyard, an elderly woman saying the birds around her house were disappearing, and noise complaints.
During the fight, a local council member privately accused Amazon of engaging in “aggressive PR efforts writ large while ignoring the immediately affected neighborhood.”
Video from when the drones operated in College Station reveals a buzzing noise that sounds like a loud beehive. Met with resistance from homeowners and public officials, Amazon decided to end its program in 2025.
In Omaha, residents are joking that they should start shooting the delivery drones out of the sky.
— John Gage is the executive editor of The Plains Sentinel.