DoorDash has announced a new drone delivery business called DoorDash Air. The project, developed by the company’s robotics and autonomy team, includes custom-built aircraft and is intended to be integrated into DoorDash’s existing delivery app.
The company revealed DoorDash Air after receiving a Part 135 air carrier certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). That certification permits DoorDash to operate a commercial drone delivery service legally within the United States.
Timeline and initial operations
DoorDash stressed that the announcement does not mean its custom drones will start delivering meals immediately. The company did not provide a detailed schedule for when its aircraft will enter regular operations. Initial deployments are expected to be limited pilot programs in which unmanned aircraft fly short distances while remaining within the operator’s line of sight.
For drones to operate autonomously over longer distances, DoorDash will need FAA approval for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations. Companies such as Amazon, Wing, and Zipline have received similar BVLOS certifications in recent years.
Existing partnerships
Despite launching DoorDash Air, DoorDash will maintain its partnerships with Wing and Flytrex. DoorDash partnered with Alphabet’s Wing in 2022 for a drone delivery program in Australia and later expanded that partnership to several U.S. cities, including the Dallas–Fort Worth area in 2024.
DoorDash Labs and Dot
DoorDash Air was developed within DoorDash Labs, the company’s R&D team that also created Dot, an autonomous sidewalk delivery robot introduced in September 2025. Dot is currently operating in the Phoenix-area suburbs of Tempe, Mesa, Gilbert, and Chandler, and in Fremont, California.
The company views drones and sidewalk robots as components of a broader delivery network. Physical hardware — for example, a 350-pound sidewalk robot or a drone — matters, but Stanley Tang, DoorDash co-founder and chief product officer, emphasizes that the operating system that decides which mode to use for a given delivery is equally critical.
Autonomous Delivery Platform and full-stack approach
DoorDash Labs has already built software called the Autonomous Delivery Platform to coordinate Dot, human drivers, and, soon, drones. According to Tang, the platform addresses the full stack of challenges: hardware and embedded systems, routing algorithms, and real-time decisions about whether to dispatch a human driver, a drone, or a sidewalk robot for each delivery.
Tang framed this complexity as part of his recruitment pitch to engineers, noting that many autonomy companies focus on a single layer, while DoorDash is attempting to run all these systems on one network.
Why it matters
DoorDash’s move shows how delivery platforms are expanding beyond match-making apps to integrate physical elements of the logistics chain. Securing the Part 135 certificate creates a legal pathway to commercial drone deliveries in the U.S., but broader autonomous and BVLOS operations will require additional regulatory approvals. In the long term, integrating drones and sidewalk robots could change how rapid last-mile deliveries are handled, particularly for short trips in urban areas, but practical deployment depends on further technological and regulatory steps.
