The key race: Round Rock is taking orders, and Wing still has five live metros
Community Impact reported that Zipline launched in Round Rock on October 8, 2026, including a demonstration delivery at Stony Point High School. Zach Hill, who leads community engagement, said customers within a three-mile zone from the intersection of East Palm Valley Boulevard and Kenney Fort Boulevard could begin placing Zipline-app orders on October 9, and that the drones have a delivery weight limit of about five pounds. Hill called Round Rock the company's first Central Texas zone and the first commercial drone delivery service in the Austin area, and said the service area is expected to expand. The story's editor's note says a private address was removed.
Wing's Walmart waitlist, opened October 18, still lists five live metros: Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Orlando. Denver, Seattle, and St. Louis remain coming soon, along with Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Memphis, Miami, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Tampa. That is the same five-metro flying map as on October 7. Round Rock is a Zipline zone, not a sixth live Walmart metro.
Who's ahead: Kirkwood did not advance a nest, and St. Louis is still coming soon
KMOX reported on October 16 that the Kirkwood City Council brought the Walmart drone bill forward on Thursday night and that no member made a motion, so the bill did not advance. Residents who spoke cited noise and privacy. KMOX said Kirkwood is one of 12 cities in the region getting a Wing pitch, so this is one suburb, not a decision for the whole St. Louis metro.
Wing's waitlist still shows St. Louis as coming soon. The nest result does not add a live metro and does not remove St. Louis from the announced map. Denver and Seattle, named on October 5 for 2027, are also still marked coming soon rather than flying.
What decides it: Part 108 is still pending after the October 8 clock
The FAA final rule RIN 2120-AL82, Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations, was received by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on July 10, 2026. The reginfo.gov record opened October 18 is still titled Pending EO 12866 Regulatory Review, at Final Rule stage, and it shows no concluded date. Ninety days from July 10 was October 8. The listing had not left pending review.
Until that record changes, Wing's five live Walmart metros, Zipline's Round Rock zone, and Amazon's 11 U.S. Prime Air sites are still scaling on existing authorities. Kirkwood shows the other gate: a city can stop a nest without a new federal rule. Amazon's page still says those 11 sites are the current U.S. footprint and that it plans to reach nearly 500 cities and towns by the end of 2026.
The market: Amazon's year-end reach is still 11 sites and a 500-place claim
Amazon's Prime Air page still says drone delivery is offered from 11 U.S. locations across Phoenix, Tampa, Kansas City, Baton Rouge, Detroit, Omaha, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Waco, and that each site serves about 175 square miles. The named coming-soon metros are still Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Boise. The page also says Prime Air is available in Darlington, England, within 7.5 miles of the fulfillment center, and it calls that the first service outside the United States. It does not date the Darlington sentence. The nearly-500 figure is Amazon's year-end reach claim, not a count of new sites opened since October 7.
Wing and Walmart's Denver and Seattle lines remain 2027 coming-soon entries on the waitlist. No sixth U.S. Walmart metro is marked live.
What to watch through early 2027
Watch whether the OIRA listing for RIN 2120-AL82 leaves pending review, and how long after any publication operators actually receive standing authorizations. Watch whether Wing's waitlist replaces five live metros with a sixth, whether St. Louis service appears from a city other than Kirkwood, and whether Round Rock grows past the three-mile Palm Valley and Kenney Fort zone.
Watch whether Amazon's page replaces the 11 live U.S. sites with any of Chicago, Syracuse, Cleveland, Atlanta, or Boise before year-end, and whether the Darlington line gains a date. The throughline is the same: a handful of metros are flying, and the next year is whether a standing U.S. rule and another live hub let the service leave them.
