(Credit: M Scott Brauer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Delivery drones are intended to zip your packages to you by air, but that convenience has one unintended consequence: noise pollution.
Amazon is testing its Prime Air delivery drones in College Station, Texas, where the cacophony of overhead drones is annoying the people who live there, CNBC reports. “They sound like a hundred swarms of bees,” one College Station resident said in an interview with NBC. The noise gets louder on a nearby launchpad, where all the delivery drones converge.
In May, Amazon received approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to let its delivery drones fly past the visual line of sight. Since then, the company has been testing the service with its MK-27 Prime Air drones in College Station, a town located 100 miles northwest of Houston.
However, a few months into testing, residents are complaining about the noise produced by the air-borne package carriers. According to another resident, the noise has disturbed the sleep of nurses, police officers, and firefighters working night shifts.
In May, Amazon submitted another set of requests to the FAA, which include plans to expand the air-delivery testing to Tolleson, Arizona, add the more rugged MK-30 drones to the fleet, and increase the number of deliveries from 200 to 469 flights a day, among other things.
In College Station, Mayor John Nichols wrote a letter to the FAA last month urging the agency to "delay the increase in service levels relating to the number of deliveries, as well as the expanded operation days and hours, until additional noise mitigation efforts are implemented by Amazon Prime Air."
Amazon tells CNBC that once the FAA approves its proposal, the company will roll out the quieter MK-30 drones for deliveries in College Station and Arizona.
Last week, Walmart ended package delivery by drone in Phoenix, Salt Lake City, and Tampa to focus on improving its airborne delivery service in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.