DoorDash Air is now a certified U.S. air carrier. DoorDash said on July 29 that it earned FAA Part 135 clearance and is launching an in-house drone program. The company says it is the eighth drone operator to get that certificate. The aircraft are not in the DoorDash app yet.
What DoorDash Air actually is
DoorDash Labs is designing and building the aircraft. That is the same robotics team behind Dot, the sidewalk bot. The company says the drone is American-designed and built, with most parts made in the U.S. Harrison Shih, head of DoorDash Air, said the goal is the full stack: ground sites, the drone, and merchant handoffs. “We want drone delivery to work for any merchant, anywhere.”
However, DoorDash is not dropping its current drone partners. Wing and Flytrex stay in the mix. Instead, DoorDash Air sits on the same Autonomous Delivery Platform that already picks among Dashers, Dot, and partner drones. Dashers still handle most daily orders, including apartments and large bags. Meanwhile, DoorDash says more than 20% of 2025 orders traveled three to five miles. Those trips took nearly 25% longer than shorter ones, mostly because a Dasher was harder to find. The company wants drones on that mid-range band.
What is still missing
Still, DoorDash did not name first cities. It also did not give a start date. It only said more details on the aircraft and the network will come later this year. Specifically, partner drone pilots already ran in 2025. DoorDash says those flights averaged about 25 minutes. Some test sites saw order volume rise about 30% for nine weeks after launch. Therefore, those figures are company estimates, not a new public schedule.
Autonomy keeps landing in pieces. TMM already covered Waymo’s new California ride markets and Amazon Now’s 30-minute delivery push. As a result, DoorDash Air is a license and a lab program, not a button in your checkout. Treat the FAA paper as clearance to operate, not as a promise that a drone will drop dinner this week.
