DoorDash is setting up DoorDash Air drone delivery after receiving a Federal Aviation Administration approval that the company says will let it carry small packages by drone in the near future.
The company said the FAA granted it Part 135 air carrier certification, the regulatory permission used by drone delivery operators to move packages commercially. Alphabet’s Wing, Zipline, and Amazon have also received that designation, according to DoorDash.
The move shifts DoorDash from partner-led trials toward building more of the stack itself. DoorDash previously worked with Alphabet’s Wing on drone delivery pilots in Dallas-Fort Worth, Virginia, and Australia. Now DoorDash says it plans to operate its own drones, built for the less glamorous but very real problem of moving prepared food without turning fries into cargo-confetti.
What is DoorDash Air?
DoorDash Air is the company’s new drone delivery program. DoorDash says it will include aircraft designed for food delivery and the ground equipment needed for restaurants to hand orders to those aircraft.
The company said the drones will be designed and assembled inside DoorDash Labs, the internal group that houses its robotics and AI teams. DoorDash Labs is also responsible for Dot, the company’s sidewalk delivery robot.
DoorDash said its aircraft is being designed for “gaps” it sees in local commerce and is meant to complement the short-range and long-range aircraft its partners are scaling. The company also claims the drone will be American-designed and built, with most components made in the United States.
That last claim lands in a market where drone manufacturing is heavily associated with China, so the supply-chain detail is more than branding. DoorDash has not provided a full parts list in the announcement, and the claim remains the company’s own description of how it plans to build the aircraft.
What does FAA Part 135 certification allow?
Part 135 certification is the FAA’s air-carrier approval for certain commercial delivery operations. In DoorDash’s telling, it clears the company to deliver small packages by drone, subject to the rest of the operational rules that govern where and how those flights happen.
The certification does not make drone delivery appear by magic at every restaurant with a tablet and a pickup shelf. DoorDash says it also needs ground-level infrastructure so restaurants can pass orders to drones before takeoff.
That infrastructure matters because drone delivery pilots typically require more than an aircraft and a map pin. Operators need physical systems for loading packages, staging flights, and getting payloads onto the drone safely before it heads to the customer.
DoorDash has not said where DoorDash Air will launch first or which restaurants will be part of the rollout. For now, the confirmed news is narrower: DoorDash has FAA Part 135 certification, plans to build its own food-focused drones through DoorDash Labs, and is preparing the ground systems needed to make restaurant handoffs work.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
