UAV - Første drone selskap får tillatelse til å fly pakker - Curt Lewis

FAA to award first drone airline licence in the next month - official

* Commercial package delivery operations require airline licence

* Only application to date is from Wing, unit of Google's parent

* Wing got nod for commercial deliveries in Australia on Tuesday
















SINGAPORE, April 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) expects to award the first licence to operate a drone airline in the next month, an official at the regulator said on Wednesday.

The agency decided last year that large-scale commercial package delivery operations by drones would need to meet the same safety and economic certification standards as other licensed U.S. airlines.

"In the next month we expect to announce we will have our first ... air carrier certificate for operating a drone airline," FAA Office of Unmanned Aircraft System Integration Executive Director Jay Merkle said at a conference in Singapore.

"That is a major accomplishment for us and our partner."

He declined to name the partner, but to date, the only air carrier certificate application for a drone carrier listed on a U.S. government website has come from Wing Aviation LLC, a subsidiary of Google's parent, Alphabet Inc.