“Scalability”– the Holy Grail of drone delivery companies – may finally be in reach for the Mountain View, CA-based drone firm Matternet.

Last week, Ameriflight, one of America’s largest cargo delivery companies. received Part 135 approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to conduct its delivery operations nationwide in conjunction with the pioneering drone company Matternet, using Matternet’s state-of-the-art high-performance M2 drone.

Matternet already enjoys FAA approval for use of a single remote operator to manage an entire fleet of drones – 20 to be exact – operating across long distances to deliver food and store supplies to customers that request them.  But presently, Matternet still manages its scalable delivery system in a single pilot zone until the FAA gets a closer look at the company’s operation and decides whether to grant Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) authority to Matternet  to implement its system on a larger scale.

Other companies like the Israeli drone firm Percepto already enjoy broad BVLOS authority from the FAA – but only for infrastructure inspections, conducted in remote areas fast from human and road traffic.  Food deliveries, even in sparsely populated suburbs, are another thing, the FAA believes, especially given the spotty safety record of companies like Amazon, which has been looking to expand remote aerial package deliveries for well over a decade now.

Mattermet’s proposed operation goes beyond the standard “last mile” delivery model that has defined drone delivery pilots to date:  A single drone delivering a lightweight package of store goods from a single store outlet, often under close on-the-ground company monitoring and supervision, with the FAA standing by to verify safety procedures.  It turns out to be a slow cumbersome process and is also quite costly to the drone company – more costly than a standard road vehicle delivery might be, studies consistently show

Mattternet’s scalable operation seems to follow closely the recommendation of a report published last December by McKinsey which called for drone operations to be conducted on a fleet basis, with a single remote controller.  The drones can respond to far-flung customer requests concurrently and with proper coordination, might even be able to service more than one supplier along the same route, assuming the drones weren’t tethered to any one company in particular – as Amazon and Walmart drones currently are, in fact.

Matternet already partners with UPS to make package deliveries in North Carolina and conducts routine medical deliveries with medical supply companies in the UAE and Abu Dhabi.  But thanks to last week’s FAA Part 135 certificate approval to Ameriflight, Matternet can finally move its scalable drone delivery system out of the pilot phase and into the broader commercial mainstream.

“We are thrilled to partner with Ameriflight, a leading cargo airline with a strong track record of reliability and performance, to enable the nationwide deployment of our drone delivery system, As the only unmanned aircraft with both FAA Type and Production certificates, we are now turning our focus to scaling our operations across the U.S. and expanding into e-commerce, while doing so safely and cost effectively,” said Andreas Raptopoulos, Co-Founder and CEO of Matternet.

“This partnership enables us to offer our customers turnkey access to fast and reliable on-demand delivery capabilities today. This is not a test program or a future deployment concept – this is the real, scalable and safe drone-based solution that customers are looking for,” he added.