Amazon Prime Air officially began flying packages to eligible customers in Nampa on Friday, turning a plan first floated back in May into a working drone delivery route over the Treasure Valley suburb. Eligible residents can now have qualifying Amazon orders dropped at their homes by drone rather than waiting on a traditional delivery van.
Prime members get free drone delivery on orders of $50 or more, or pay just $2.99 on smaller orders, while customers without a Prime membership pay $4.99 per delivery, according to idahonews.com. The drones can carry packages weighing up to five pounds, and Amazon hopes to get orders to customers within 30 minutes of checkout, as reported by Idaho News 6.
The service runs out of a dedicated Prime Air facility in Nampa, and idahonews.com described the coverage zone as a 170-square-mile radius around the hub. Idaho News 6 separately reported a 7.5-mile delivery radius and said flights operate during daytime hours, from 30 minutes after sunrise until 30 minutes before sunset.
A Plan Years — and Months — in the Making
Amazon first announced plans to target Nampa for drone delivery back in May, according to Idaho News 6's reporting. That timeline lines up with earlier coverage from the Idaho Statesman, which reported that Nampa's Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-1 to approve Amazon's land-use application, with the project able to move forward without a City Council vote.
That earlier reporting described a planned 21,000-square-foot launch facility built to include launch pads, charging stations, drone storage, flight monitoring systems and an operations building. Before that, the Statesman reported that Amazon's proposed Nampa service area would reach parts of Nampa, Meridian, Middleton, Star, and portions of Kuna and Boise within roughly a 7.5-mile radius — the same radius figure Idaho News 6 cited this week for the now-live service.
Not every number lines up neatly across the coverage. The Statesman's pre-launch reporting pegged the planned service area at roughly 170 square miles, while BoiseDev reported an Amazon representative's estimate of about 176 square miles covering that same 7.5-mile radius. The drones themselves have also been described inconsistently: Idaho News 6's launch-day report put the MK30 drone's weight at 85 pounds, the Statesman's earlier reporting listed 83 pounds, and a low-confidence snippet from an FAA environmental assessment document put the figure at 78 pounds. Operating hours carry a similar wrinkle — Idaho News 6's launch coverage described daytime flights from 30 minutes after sunrise until 30 minutes before sunset, while the Statesman's earlier reporting on the planned schedule described deliveries running from 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset, weather permitting.
Part of a Much Bigger Rollout
Nampa's launch is a small piece of a much larger push. Amazon says it plans to expand Prime Air to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026, which the company describes as a sixfold increase from its current footprint, according to aboutamazon.com. Amazon's own materials state that Prime Air currently operates from 11 sites across 10 U.S. metro areas, with orders arriving in as fast as 30 minutes and most landing around 60 minutes after checkout.
Idaho News 6 reported that Prime Air service is also available in parts of Phoenix, Detroit, San Antonio, Dallas and Tampa, as well as parts of Waco, Kansas City, Omaha, Baton Rouge, Cleveland, Chicago and Houston. Before Nampa's project won local approval, BoiseDev reported that the facility would make Nampa Amazon's 13th city with drone delivery if approved — a milestone that has since played out with Friday's launch.
