Do drones to connect cities make sense? No one knows, but they are flying over New York City

it’s a bird, It’s an airplane, it’s a flying vehicle with six propellers and a wingspan of about eight feet.

Next year, delivery drones operated by British company Skyports will make daily weekday flights across New York City’s East River, between the tip of Manhattan and a pier in Brooklyn. Since early May — a little behind schedule — drones have carried light cargo for New York City’s healthcare system. Currently, these loads consist of a few pounds of paper; Once the healthcare system is confident that the setup will be successful, it should include non-hazardous, non-biological packaging, such as soft medications.

The drones are part of an experiment being conducted by two agencies in New York and New Jersey to discover how the relatively new and sometimes controversial delivery technology can fit into the crowded urban environment and the airspace above it. The pilot will also attempt to answer the question of the entire drone delivery industry: Where does it make sense?

“Will there be enough regular flights (1 to 2 per hour) that the customer’s healthcare system will find real value?” Stefan Bezdek, director of regional shipping planning at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is running the pilot, wrote in an email to WIRED. (The Port Authority declined to name the health care system for contractual reasons.) “Will the deliveries reach their destination faster and within the financial constraints of the current carriers that use them? Will the community appreciate the work and not feel it represents a disruption? All of this will shape our understanding of how the first corridor is shaped.”

The Port Authority, which is also working with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCDEC) on the drone project, will also measure how deliveries impact patient care, Bezdek says.

Globally, drone delivery is still in an experimental phase. Existing projects mostly focus on transporting goods to rural or suburban areas, where gaps in road networks and services, combined with empty skies, can make the technology a better fit. Skyports have been delivering mail in remote areas of Scotland since 2023, and carrying goods to offshore wind turbines in Germany. The American company Zipline says that it delivers to and from about 5,000 health facilities across four continents. Its oldest program provides vaccines and blood products in Rwanda. In the US, companies including Alphabet’s Wing and Amazon’s Prime Air are expanding delivery services throughout the South, with a focus on suburban areas around Houston, Austin and Dallas in Texas.

For drones, dense cities present different challenges. First, there is the safety question. New York City’s airspace is crowded, hosting three international airports. In Manhattan alone, there are three publicly owned heliports. In May 2023, nearly 9,000 helicopter flights were conducted over city land or water, according to data collected by the New York City Council. The start date for the drone program was postponed in part because another experimental flight technology, an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle, was piloting its first-ever flights from the same helipad.

This hustle and bustle leads to extra precautions being taken. The pilot project has been approved, as standard, by the US Federal Aviation Administration, which requires a certified drone pilot to supervise each flight. Each trip will be carried out on a fixed route away from residential buildings. The project must receive a weekly permit from the NYPD to operate, and delays in getting the first permit also led to the city postponing the start date, says Amanda Cowan, a spokeswoman for the Port Authority. The agency also spoke with three local community councils before allowing the drones to take off.