Flytrex has received approval from the FAA to fly drone delivery operations beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), making them only the fourth company in the United States with this kind of approval. “This approval enables Flytrex to expand its service nationwide to the 37 largest metro areas in the U.S.—unlocking the ability to bring drone delivery to over 100 million people, the company said in a statement.

In a press release, Flytrex stated that they began working with the FAA in 2017, navigating an approval process that “inherits much of its testing methodology from traditional manned aviation. Throughout its certification process, Flytrex has met stringent FAA requirements including comprehensive safety data analysis, thousands of flight hours, and extensive operational testing.”

Prior to this approval, the FAA required that there was a visual observer on the ground tracking every flight. Now, Flytrex can fly multiple drones from an operations center, which they say willincrease delivery throughput while “dramatically” reducing operational costs.

 “After nearly a decade of development, this BVLOS approval transforms our entire business model," said Yariv Bash, CEO and co-founder of Flytrex, in a press statement. "We can now outperform any other traditional on-demand delivery method —monitoring fleets of drones from centralized command centers rather than posting observers across delivery zones. With BVLOS, we can now build the infrastructure to bring drone delivery to 100 million Americans."

Flytrex joins Wing (a Google Company), Amazon, and Zipline as the only companies in the United States to fly BVLOS for drone deliveries.

Moving forward, Flytrex plans to grow operations in the Dallas Fort Worth area, with the stated goal of adding dozens of new sites by the end of the year and covering the entire metro area in the next 12 months. In the coming years, the company says they plan to scale nationwide with the goal of reaching 100 million new users.

Source: Flytrex