Thirteen years ago, Jeff Bezos strode into a room on the set of CBS’ 60 Minutes and revealed Amazon’s first delivery drone, predicting 30-minute drop-offs of airborne packages within the next four to five years. Ever since, the e-commerce giant has struggled to live up to that promise.

On Wednesday, it took a step forward, announcing plans to expand drone delivery to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of this year, which it said represents a sixfold increase in its drone network footprint and will total tens of millions of customers. The expansion comes after years of floundering to get its drone project off the ground and widespread skepticism that the effort—however attractive—will ever amount to more than a limited side project. It signals that Amazon is still serious about creating the reality Bezos predicted in 2013.

Amazon said its drone deliveries are expanding to the Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, and Atlanta areas, among other metro areas and towns, though it didn’t make clear how many deliveries it expects per day or how large its fleet of drones will be in each location. Almost any item weighing five pounds or less that can fit in a large shoebox is eligible for delivery, Amazon said, with customers ordering through the Amazon app. Delivery is free for Prime members who spend $50 or more. Otherwise, it’s a $2.99 fee. Non-Prime members pay $4.99 per delivery.

The company’s current drone delivery operations include San Antonio, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Kansas City, Kansas; and eight other areas. The drones, which depart from Amazon fulfillment sites, can deliver items to customers in as little as 30 minutes, according to Amazon. But even in its existing markets the service is relatively limited. The drones can’t fly beyond a roughly seven mile radius, limiting their reach, and they operate primarily in suburban locations in order to avoid tall buildings and other tricky obstacles.

Amazon has delivered hundreds of thousands of packages to customers by drone this year, Prime Air boss David Carbon said in a statement. Impressive as the figure may be, it’s just a fraction of the nearly 20 million packages that Amazon delivers every day in the U.S., according to market research firm ShipMatrix.

Several companies, including Amazon competitors like Walmart, have also been trying to crack drone delivery to quicken their shipping speeds and to rely less on human drivers. Company goals have been sidetracked by regulatory hurdles, costly tech, and complaints by local residents.

“It’s still clearly a work in progress, but they have a vision that this is one of the best ways to get things to people in less than 45 minutes,” said Josh Lowitz, co-founder of Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, which studies Amazon Prime members. Lowitz, who visited Amazon’s Prime Air drone lab in Seattle this week, said the company is primarily delivering via drone in suburban areas because it needs a 10-foot radius to deliver safely.

“They’re working on battery technology and sound technology, trying to make it better and better. If the delivery range goes from seven miles to 15 miles, they could reach people in rural areas,” Lowitz said.

Regulatory challenges

While Amazon is best positioned to make drone delivery happen, given its hundreds of fulfillment centers and technology resources, it has faced a wave of problems in meeting its ambition. Gaining certification from the Federal Aviation Administration has been a key issue, since the FAA’s standard methods of evaluating aircraft are based on human-piloted aircraft.

Flying and landing in people’s yards was unprecedented before Amazon and others began to test their drones, and Amazon had to build its standards from scratch. Amazon also initially approached the project from a technological perspective, not staffing enough people who knew how to navigate the regulatory system, former employees told Fortune.

In 2020, Amazon replaced the visionary founder of the project, Gur Kimchi, with former Boeing executive David Carbon. While the move showed Amazon taking the regulatory part of the project earnestly, it initially sparked a culture clash, the former employees said. Many of the original Prime Air employees left, stalling the project as Carbon rebuilt talent to figure out robotics, autonomy, and other technical aspects.

The growing pains didn’t stop there. In the fall of 2025, two Amazon delivery drones collided with a crane in Arizona, causing damage and a fire. This July, one of the company’s drones crashed into a garden while attempting a delivery in Darlington, UK.

Amazon also left two sites, in Lockeford, Calif., and College Station, Texas, after initially testing its drones there. Some residents complained about a loud buzz from drones, though Amazon has said the noise is no louder than an idling delivery truck. An Amazon spokeswoman said each generation of Prime Air technology has brought significant sound improvements.

Walmart, together with Alphabet’s Wing, has been expanding its efforts, recently adding seven new delivery markets, with a plan to reach more than 40 million American customers by 2027.

An FAA rule that would make it easier to deliver packages via drone in longer flights beyond an operator’s line of sight awaits approval. In recent regulatory filings, Amazon said GPS signals degrade at lower altitudes for its drones, with the company asking regulators for permission to use a special wireless frequency in some drone tests.

Human drivers vs. Drones

Aside from drones being a coveted Bezos pet project, the decision to press on may come down to the company maintaining its edge on speed, and the expansion comes as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is supporting a bill that would force Amazon and other companies to make their delivery drivers employees instead of subcontractors.

Speed has been a bedrock for Amazon since it pioneered two-day shipping. It has crept closer, year by year, to the reality of almost-instant delivery. It has done this by opening centers equipped to move popular products and everyday essentials quickly through its system.

It has at least 65 so-called sub-same-day centers throughout the U.S. and is also operating out of small locations in inner cities to get to customers faster, according to logistics consultant MWPVL International. Some of these locations have refrigerators inside for perishable items, MWPVL said.

The company has sharpened its efficiency with AI, robotics, and its strategy to be as close to customers as possible. For fast deliveries, it is also leaning on on-demand drivers with their own vehicles, who can more easily turn around deliveries compared to the regular Amazon vans that follow less-scattered routes.

Amazon subsidizes its vast delivery system with the fees it collects through its third-party sellers, as well as the more than 200 million Prime members it has (who each pay $139 a year). The money it collects from seller fees accounts for nearly a quarter of its overall revenue. The funds, along with its virtually unmatched logistics expertise and increasing demand, have enabled the company to spread throughout the U.S., including into corners of rural America.