Google sister company Wing is allowed to deliver packages in the US with drones

Wing, a company owned by Google owner Alphabet, has received permission in the United States to deliver packages with autonomous drones. Wing says it will begin deliveries to remote areas in the state of Virginia in a few months.

The Federal Aviation Administration has granted Wing the necessary permit, Bloomberg reports. The company is now classified as an airline and that gives it the ability to deliver packages with drones. However, existing rules such as bans on flying drones over crowds and urban areas remain in effect. Wing is therefore limited in where it can deliver. The company tells Bloomberg it will begin delivering small consumer goods to two remote communities in Virginia in the coming months.

More companies want to deliver packages with drones in the US and several parties have received permission from the FAA to conduct demonstration flights. However, Wing is the first company that has actually been classified as an airline and thus obtained permission to use delivery services with drones.

Earlier this month, Wing received permission in Australia to deliver packages with drones. The company has conducted thousands of test flights in that country. Those test flights have also been factored into the FAA’s assessment.

Wing comes from Google X, the part of Alphabet that experiments with all kinds of projects. In July 2018, Wing outgrew the program and the company became an independent company.