Turnover rate in the division is now down to 16%, according to people directly familiar with the matter. 'Prime Air has new leadership and it's normal for some team members to find new roles as the program transitions from R&D to an operations focus,' the spokesperson said. The others, meanwhile, 'just flat out don't agree with the plan,' he said.Īmazon's spokesperson previously told Insider the attrition rate at Prime Air had improved in recent months. The first group is composed of people who agree with the team's direction but grew tired of the launch delays, and 'don't have another two years to wait' for the launch, Carbon said. Since its first unveiling in 2013, Prime Air has dealt with years of internal conflict and regulatory issues, and it's still unclear when exactly the drone delivery service will become commercially viable, as Insider previously reported.ĭuring the March meeting, Carbon explained that the employee departures were largely split into two categories. The tension at the meeting is the latest sign of upheaval at Prime Air, Amazon's most ambitious shipping program that's designed to deliver packages using fully electric drones. Other questions he answered include the cultural difference between longtime Amazon employees and the newly hired Boeing 'expats,' the lack of transparency among some teams, and the repeated launch delays. Obviously, we can't sustain 20% - it's just gonna kill our folks.'Ĭarbon's response came during the meeting's Q&A session, which quickly turned sour as he started addressing contentious questions submitted by employees, as Insider previously reported. '20% is not a great number,' Carbon said at the meeting. Turnover is a growing concern at Amazon with employees having to deal with a rigorous performance review system and the company facing an unusually high number of executives leaving the company in the past year. Carbon said the turnover rate was 20% last year, a higher figure than Amazon Robotics' 16%, and higher than the 14% rate seen across the broader retail operations unit. That's according to Prime Air VP David Carbon, who was asked about the team's high attrition rate during an internal staff meeting in March, according to a transcript of the meeting obtained by Insider. The team in charge of Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery program saw higher attrition than the rest of the company last year, in part due to delays in the official launch that's now pushed back to 2022, Insider has learned.

Prime Air is now aiming for a soft launch in the third quarter of 2022, Insider has learned.Prime Air VP David Carbon said part of the high turnover was due to people growing tired of the launch delays.Amazon's Prime Air drone delivery team saw 20% turnover last year, higher than other parts of the company.The realtors, for example, wouldn’t need to fly above 200 feet to get a great shot of a house,' Misener says as he explained proposed the concept of layered airspace to address this issue.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders. For others, it might be aerial photography. And then below 200 feet, that would be limited to certain operations.

'Between 200 and 400 feet would be a transit zone, where drones could fly fairly quickly, horizontally. Between 400 and 500 feet there’d be a no-fly zone-a safety buffer,' he said. 'We were thinking: Manned aircraft above 500 feet. Drone SystemsĪpart from regulatory challenges, certain hypothetical scenarios have come to light that bring attention to the safety and efficiency of drone use for commercial deliveries.įor instance, with Amazon and other retail behemoths looking into drones to make deliveries, urban airspace will now be saturated with buzzing drones. So all of this might take some time, and it might not be held back by technical limitations, but governmental ones. Realistically, it has to contend with FAA approvals for commercial use in the US and Civil Aviation Authority in the UK. These seem like reasonable assertions however, Misener still has yet to give details on when their drone delivery system will be deployed. It turns out that the vast majority of the things we sell at Amazon weigh less than five pounds.' These things will weigh about 55 pounds each, but they’ll be able to deliver parcels that weigh up to five pounds. 'The goals we’ve set for ourselves are: The range has to be over 10 miles. 'So Prime Air is a future delivery service that will get packages to customers within 30 minutes of them ordering it online at ,' Paul Misener, Amazon’s vice president for global public policy told Yahoo News.

Amazon drone delivery issues