FAA Grounds Wesley Berry’s Plans for Drone-Delivered Flowers

4113

Wesley Berry’s plans to deliver flowers by drone have been halted by the Federal Aviation Administration — for now. Berry, owner of Wesley Berry Flowers and FlowerDeliveryExpress.com, both in Commerce Township, was told Wednesday that commercial use of drones is only authorized on a case-by-case basis.

FlowerDeliveryExpress.com had intended to deliver free rose bouquets to a test group on Valentine’s Day so as to benchmark the delivery capacity of its drone. The company currently uses traditional delivery methods to serve its several million customers across the country. 

“Unfortunately, we can no longer conduct testing of delivering flowers by drone,” Berry says. “However, the good news is that this technology is here to stay. When the time is right, we’ll be ready for orders to be delivered, not by an address, but by GPS coordinates. It’s exciting to plan the future of the business based on this emerging technology.”

Company officials say people can still join the company’s beta test program, which tests alternative deliver methods and other development efforts before going to market — just don’t expect delivery by drone for now.