Amazon Prime Air delivery sees temporary pauses due to heat

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Seven months into service, Amazon Prime Air has made over 100 deliveries according to MSNBC.

But, some of those are being slowed down here in College Station. Customers have reached out to KBTX saying due to the heat, Amazon Drone deliveries are only available when it’s cool enough. A spokesperson with Amazon, Av Zammit, said this is expected.

“We deliver during specific wind and temperature conditions. We pause temporarily when conditions rise beyond that range and resume as soon as conditions return to within our operating limits,” he said.

Amazon Prime Air took flight in College Station in December 2022. Dominique Lord is a College Station resident who was excited when he found out this program delivers to his home. In June, he set it up.

“It worked well. I saw the drone from pretty far and then it was pretty cool because it was the first time that you see it and then you see it you see the Drone coming in, eventually like it goes over my driveway because we have trees in the back. We have to have it delivered in the front and that was successful,” Lord said.

He enjoyed his first delivery, of coffee grounds. Then the next day, decided to try again for some crackers.

But, he got a notification that heat was preventing the delivery. When he tried again a few days later, the drone came but left without dropping his item. Amazon told him there might be issues with his landing area and will come reevaluate it.

“Thursday somebody’s coming to see if there are any issues with the survey that they did the first time so it’s just weird that it worked the first time but then the other times it did not so it’s kind of frustrating,” he said.

The College Station Assistant Director of Economic Development, Brian Piscacek, said despite any hiccups, the impact of having Amazon in town is significant.

“What this opportunity with Amazon provides is something that not only are you creating job opportunities for folks but unique ones at that but also the downstream effects and really doing something that’s like significantly impactful in terms of changing the way that services and products can be delivered to individual households,” he said.

Lord says even with his troubles, he’s excited to get the problems sorted out and get back to using the service again.

“I’m gonna order a few times. I’m not sure how often I will do it, like maybe for something like an emergency or if I have family over and I say hey like do you want to see like an Amazon drone,” he said.

According to MSNBC, Amazon Prime Air reached 100 deliveries between both their College Station and California locations.