FAA BVLOS waivers are site-specific, blocking multi-location scale-up

Drone delivery operators like Wing, Zipline, and DroneUp must obtain individual FAA Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waivers for every single delivery location they want to operate from. Each waiver requires months of safety documentation, operational risk assessments, and FAA review. The proposed Part 108 rule that would standardize BVLOS approvals was delayed past its original 2024 deadline, missed a July 2025 deadline, finally got an NPRM published in August 2025, received 3,000+ comments, and is now stalled again due to the FAA shutdown in late 2025. The final rule is not expected until spring 2026 at the earliest, with implementation 6-12 months after that. This means drone delivery companies cannot expand beyond a handful of test corridors. Walmart's drone delivery partner DroneUp, for example, must negotiate separate approvals for each of its 270+ planned locations. The structural reason this persists is that the FAA's rulemaking process was designed for manned aviation where changes affect a small number of aircraft types, not for an industry that needs thousands of site-specific authorizations. The result is that companies burn millions on regulatory compliance per site while competitors in countries like Australia and Rwanda operate freely.