Online retail giant Amazon has called for a separate air space zone to be created to allow drone flights to deliver goods to customers.

Online retail giant Amazon has called for a separate air space zone to be created to allow drone flights to deliver goods to customers.

The unmanned vehicles would fly below planes at a height of between 200 and 400 feet, with air traffic control for the new drone space handled by an automated computer system, Amazon has suggested.  

That height would mean the drones can fly without endangering civilian or military planes.

The US etailer is already carrying out trials of drones, as are Chinese ecommerce giant Alibaba and Google, which has tested them in parts of Australia.

Germany’s DHL has also trialled drones to supply medicine to a small island in the North Sea.

Amazon laid out its suggestions for the new airspace at a NASA convention in California, in which it also proposed another air space below 200 feet for low-speed localised drone traffic including private hobby drones and those used for filming and surveying.  

The level between 200 and 400 feet would be reserved for “high-speed transit”, including delivery drones like the ones Amazon is testing.

As previously reported, Amazon was given official approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to pilot drone flight delivery in the US back in March.

Details about how Amazon’s proposed delivery drones may work were also published by the US Patent Office earlier in the year.

The patent said the drones would be able to track the locations of each delivery’s recipient by using data from their smartphones.