Walmart—which owns the nation’s largest drone delivery service through a partnership with Alphabet’s Wing—this week announced plans to extend its operations in Texas and Georgia to seven new markets amid a push to serve 10 percent of the U.S. population by 2027.
The partners in January revealed ambitious plans to offer drone delivery out of 270 Walmart locations, announcing they would bring Wing drones to Los Angeles, Miami, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. That came a few months after they laid plans for operations in Atlanta—which launched in December—Charlotte, North Carolina, where Wing has a service with DoorDash, and Orlando and Tampa, Florida.
Next in line for the service, Wing and Walmart said Monday, are San Diego, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, New Orleans, Memphis, Tennessee, Philadelphia, and the San Francisco Bay Area. They said the completed expansion will cover 20 U.S. markets. That would be more than any U.S. drone delivery network today.
Customers will be alerted to the service’s availability through an option on Walmart’s website or application, determined by the address linked to their account. The partners said deliveries will be completed in as little as 30 minutes.
“We’re already working with many communities in the seven new markets, as we accelerate our progress to bring ultra-fast delivery to 40 million residents throughout the U.S.,” said Heather Rivera, Wing’s chief business officer, in a statement.
How Wing Works
Wing said Monday that it has facilitated “well over 1 million commercial deliveries,” a scale that is exceeded only by medical and commercial drone delivery provider Zipline. It is one of a handful of drone operators with FAA Part 135 authorization that allows it to operate a commercial service.
The company said “millions” of customers already have access to its drones, which fly up to 60 mph at about 150 feet and use a tether to lower packages gently to a picnic blanket-sized area. Vertical lift and cruise motors power respective sets of propellers on the roughly 5-foot-wide uncrewed aircraft, which can carry up to 5 pounds of cargo within a 6-mile service radius.
They are designed to serve single-family homes, apartments, and commercial delivery zones.
An exemption allows Wing to fly the drones outside the view of human personnel. Tasks such as flight planning, preflight checks, and traffic management are either partially or fully automated. That includes the loading of orders by store associates, who simply leave them curbside for Wing’s Autoloader to secure to the drone’s tether.
The entire operation occupies about as much space on the ground as two rows of parking spaces.
Drone Delivery on the Rise
Wing said in January that delivery volume tripled between the first and final six months of 2025, evidencing the rapid growth of commercial drone operations. Expect that trend to continue.
The exemption Wing uses to fly beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of humans will become a relic of the past once the FAA finalizes Part 108, its proposed rule for standardized BVLOS operations.
Rather than obtaining separate BVLOS waivers for each new market or service, operators under Part 108 would instead secure a BVLOS permit or certificate by showing they comply with industry-devised airworthiness, design, and test requirements. Holders would follow a new set of operational rules intended specifically for the expanded drone operations, which will have less direct human oversight and rely more on automation.
However, the FAA’s timeline for finalizing the rule has slipped due to significant pushback from non-remote pilots. For example, pilots criticized the agency’s proposal to grant right of way to uncrewed drones over crewed aircraft in certain scenarios. Some contended the technology is not ready for the complexity of controlled airspace, another operational restriction lifted by the proposal.
The FAA’s analysis of that feedback will determine how many people companies like Wing could serve in the future.
