Company Had Not Been Granted A Commercial Use Authorization

A flower delivery company tried to take a page from Amazon.com's book and make Valentine's Day deliveries using a UAV, but the FAA didn't show the company any love.

FlowerDeliveryExpress.com recently conducted what it said in a news release was the first "flower delivery by drone." But the FAA shut down the "experiment," informing the company that commercial use is only authorized on a case-by-case basis, and they were not authorized to make the flights. FlowerDeliveryExpress.com was forced to halt future "testing" with the aircraft.

The company had intended to deliver as many free rose bouquets as possible to its beta test group on Valentine's Day so as to benchmark the delivery capacity of its UAV. The company currently uses traditional delivery methods to serve its customers across the country.

"Unfortunately, we can no longer conduct testing of delivering flowers by drone," said company CEO Wesley Berry. "However, the good news is that this technology is here to stay. When the time is right, we'll be ready for orders to be delivered, not by an address, but by GPS coordinates. It's exciting to plan the future of the business based on this emerging technology."

But for now, "Cupid's wings have been clipped," Berry said.

(Image provided by FlowerDeliveryExpress.com)

FMI: www.faa.gov