Customers in Los Angeles, Miami, St. Louis, and Cincinnati in need of last-minute delivery will soon have the option to receive orders via drone.
Those were the four new markets revealed Sunday by Walmart and drone delivery partner Wing. The partners said they plan to add an additional 150 Walmart stores—and an estimated 40 million Americans—to their network, which is active in Dallas-Fort Worth and recently launched in Atlanta. Additional expansion markets will be announced at a later date.
The move comes on the heels of a previous expansion, announced in June, that the companies said covers 100 Walmart stores in Atlanta, Houston, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Orlando and Tampa, Florida.
Wing said operations in Houston are expected to begin Thursday. By 2027, it aims to offer drone delivery out of more than 270 Walmart locations, serving customers from coast to coast.
“The question is no longer if Wing and Walmart will deliver to your city, it’s when,” Wing said in a news release.
Wing said that its top 25 percent of customers in Dallas-Fort Worth and Atlanta order three times per week. It estimated that deliveries tripled between the first six months of 2025 and the final six months. In June, the partners said Wing drones completed thousands of weekly deliveries in Dallas-Fort Worth—with an average delivery time of less than 20 minutes.
“The strong adoption we’ve seen confirms that this is the future of convenience,” said Greg Cathey, Walmart’s senior vice president of digital fulfillment transformation.
How It Works
Wing’s drones operate under Part 135 authorization in the U.S. They are equipped with vertical lift and cruise motors that power propellers for those respective phases of flight.
The drones cruise at about 60 mph and 150 feet agl with up to 5 pounds of cargo, capable of braving wind and light rain. Their service radius is capped at about 6 miles. Upon reaching the customer’s address, the drones autonomously check for a clear delivery zone. Orders are lowered on a tether to an area on the ground of the customer’s choice, which could be as small as a picnic blanket.
In addition to delivery-friendly items such as canned goods, the drones can transport refrigerated items like guacamole or raw meat, breakables such as eggs, and over-the-counter medications.
Remote pilots oversee operations from a central location. But flight planning, traffic management, preflight checks, and other tasks are highly or completely automated. Store associates drop orders curbside, where Wing’s Autoloader does exactly what its name implies, securing them on the tether for delivery. The Autoloader can be installed on the side of a building or as a standalone apparatus.
In some locations, including Dallas-Fort Worth, Wing’s operation is integrated with Walmart’s and DoorDash’s delivery apps.
Drone Delivery Explosion
Wing has completed more than 500,000 drone deliveries globally since launching in Christiansburg, Virginia, in 2019. The next 500,000 could come much faster.
The FAA’s proposed Part 108 rule could allow the service to reach new heights by permitting routine operations beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS) of the pilot. Removing that human oversight requirement—which many operators have done via waiver or exemption— would expand the range of delivery drones, allowing them to reach more customers.
Part 108 would also allow operations over larger crowds of people as well as in controlled airspace—including near airports.
But the rule is not final. Pilots, many represented by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) and Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA), took issue with portions of the proposal, which in some cases would grant uncrewed drones the right of way over crewed aircraft. Many contended that drones are not mature enough for operations in crowded airspace.
Wing and other operators, by contrast, argued the proposal should go even further. Some suggested requiring electronic conspicuity equippage for all crewed aircraft or eliminating Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checks for personnel.
There is no expected date for the final Part 108 rule, but a June executive order from the White House gives a timeline of early to mid-2026.