Amazon Prime Air is pushing ahead with drone delivery tests in the UK, while quietly abandoning a similar effort in Italy.
What’s Related
Earlier this month, Amazon received approval from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority to begin drone operations. Test flights started in mid-January from the company’s fulfillment center in Darlington, located in northeast England. A broader commercial rollout is expected later in 2026.
The UK program will use Amazon’s latest MK30 drone, which can carry packages weighing up to 2.2 kilograms (about five pounds). Amazon has said the drones are designed to deliver items within roughly two hours of ordering, focusing on smaller, everyday purchases.
At the same time Amazon was ramping up its UK tests, it pulled the plug on its drone delivery plans in Italy. The move came just days earlier in January and followed successful test flights conducted there in 2024. Neither Amazon nor Italian regulators provided a detailed explanation for the decision, though Italy’s aviation authority referenced “recent financial events” when confirming the program had been halted, according to DroneXL.
The contrast between the two countries is notable. The UK has positioned itself as an active testing ground for new delivery technologies, with regulators working closely with companies on phased rollouts. Italy, despite earlier progress, appears to have presented challenges that made near-term expansion less attractive.
Amazon has been testing drone delivery for more than a decade, with limited commercial operations already live in parts of the U.S. and select international markets. The company has repeatedly stated that scaling the service depends on safety, cost, customer demand, and regulatory clarity, all lining up at the same time.
The decision to move forward in the UK while exiting Italy shows that Amazon is becoming more selective about where it invests next. Rather than pushing ahead everywhere approval is granted, the company appears to be prioritizing markets where drone delivery can move more quickly from pilot programs to sustainable operations.
The U.S. drone package delivery market is projected to grow from $225 million in 2024 to over $1 billion by 2030. Walmart has been particularly aggressive, expanding drone delivery across Dallas-Fort Worth with partners Zipline and Wing, completing more than 120,000 deliveries since 2021. Amazon launched its MK30 drone service in Phoenix in late 2024, operating from a hybrid facility that combines fulfillment, sorting, and drone delivery under one roof.
Even more experimental approaches are emerging—Serve Robotics and Wing recently piloted a robot-to-drone handoff system in Dallas, where sidewalk robots carry food orders to automated drone pickup stations.
