On Oct. 5, Wing and Walmart added Denver and Seattle to their drone delivery expansion plan for 2027. By DroneXL's count of Wing's Walmart page, that brought the partnership's metro list to 19. As DroneXL pointed out the next day, one city is missing from that list: Bentonville, Arkansas, where Walmart has its headquarters. Bentonville's own government had already cleared the way for Wing more than a year earlier.

On Sept. 2, 2025, the Bentonville Planning Commission voted 7-0 to approve a conditional use permit for a Wing drone delivery nest at Walmart Store #100, 406 S. Walton Blvd. Public records show the city approved the nest in detail. They don't show the nest ever going into service.

What the city approved

The case, CU25-0028, appears in the commission's Sept. 2, 2025 agenda packet as "Walmart Stores / Wing Drone Delivery." The application asked for two fenced enclosures in the store's parking area plus a storage container. One enclosure was for charging and storing drones, and the other was where associates would load products. The applicant's letter says the nest occupies 27 existing parking spaces. The application said one or two employees would staff the site, with operations seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The applicant said the enclosures would sit more than 200 feet from the nearest residential property. The applicant's letter puts the nest at about 210 feet from the nearest home. The applicant also described drone noise as comparable to a vehicle or a gas lawn mower. The staff report says the city had received no public comment when it was written.

The applicant's letter also mentions Walmart's earlier drone delivery service at the store, which used a tower. It states that "Walmart has changed to a new drone company, Wing."

City staff recommended conditions that go further than a typical parking-lot permit:

  • Monthly reports to the city on average daily flights. Any NTSB-reportable events under 49 CFR 830.5 would be reported on request.
  • A 24/7 emergency contact.
  • Noise compliance at the property line, with verification testing.
  • A quarterly meeting with city staff on airspace use.
  • An eight-foot safety fence, plus coordination with the city's Building and Fire Safety offices.
  • A new public hearing could be required for any change in scope, use or ownership. The Planning Commission could revoke the permit at any time.
  • A fixed term: the "CUP shall be valid for one (1) year from approval."

According to the meeting minutes, staff gave an overview and the public hearing was opened and closed with no speakers recorded on the item. Nathan Crouch of CEI appeared for the applicant. Commissioners then added three conditions to the motion: launches and landings limited to 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. local time, quarterly airspace meetings with city staff, and the eight-foot fence. The minutes record: "Conditional use permit is approved 7-0."

The minutes do not restate the one-year term. If it was part of the final approval, the permit would have run until about early September 2026. The records reviewed for this article don't show whether it was renewed, extended or allowed to lapse. DroneXL says it has not asked the city whether the permit is still in force.

What Wing and Walmart are saying now

Wing's Oct. 5 announcement covers growth. The companies say they will expand to "nearly 20 major U.S. metros," with Denver and Seattle added for 2027. They plan to reach more than 270 Walmart stores and say over three million customers already have drone delivery access, in markets including Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Houston and Orlando. Wing says its aircraft fly at up to 60 mph and carry up to five pounds. The release quotes Greg Cathey, Walmart's senior vice president for eCommerce transformation, and Wing's Heather Rivera. The release does not mention Bentonville.

DroneXL reports that Wing's Walmart page lists 19 metros: five marked "Now serving" and 14 marked "Coming soon." Bentonville is not on it, and neither is anywhere else in Arkansas.

Walmart executives have mentioned Bentonville in public. DroneXL cites Fortune's Oct. 1, 2025 report that Cathey said at the UP.Summit conference that drone delivery would come to a Walmart across the street from the company's old Bentonville headquarters and to a store in Rogers. DroneXL also cites Retail Dive's report that on Walmart's May earnings call, Walmart U.S. CEO David Guggina said drone delivery covers 66 locations across four states, including Arkansas. Per DroneXL, Fortune's account named neither the store number nor the drone operator.

What the FAA's record shows

Drone delivery operations can get federal environmental review, and the resulting paperwork is one public clue to where an operator plans to fly. It is not a complete one: DroneXL notes that a site fitting the FAA's national assessment limits can be approved through an internal checklist without a new public review. In Arkansas, the documents DroneXL found point to Zipline, not Wing.

The FAA's written re-evaluation for Zipline's Pea Ridge, Arkansas operations carries a digital signature dated March 24, 2026; its filename reads 20260220. It evaluates amending Zipline's operations specifications to allow up to 400 delivery trips per day from a single Pea Ridge hub, which the document says is located in a Walmart parking lot. Operations would run 24 hours a day, with 95 percent of flights in daytime and 5 percent at night. The original 2022 environmental assessment covered up to 20 daytime flights per day by Zipline's P1 aircraft. The re-evaluation says Zipline has since been operating up to 100 flights per day and also covers the P2 Zip. It lists cruising altitudes of 130 to 400 feet above ground level. It also notes a seasonal restriction from March 15 to Oct. 1, a half-mile buffer around Crystal Cave in Bella Vista, Arkansas, to protect roosting gray bats.

DroneXL reports that the FAA cleared the Pea Ridge expansion on March 24, 2026. It also reports that Arkansas appears only once in the FAA's national assessment signed July 28, 2026, under Zipline's Pea Ridge hub, and that the FAA's public list of drone delivery reviews shows only Zipline documents for Arkansas. DroneXL says it found no Wing press release, FAA environmental document or city agenda describing Wing flights from Store #100, though it notes none of those records would necessarily show a launch.

Stalled, or just unannounced?

DroneXL's editor writes that he suspects Store #100 cleared its city paperwork and then stalled. That is his own interpretation, and nothing in the public record confirms it. Wing has not said the Bentonville nest was shelved. The city has not said the permit expired or was revoked. A one-year permit can be renewed, and a site can be approved long before a company announces it. A new site might also not need a public environmental document of its own.

Wing has not answered questions on other topics either. DroneXL says it sent the company 30 written safety questions on Sept. 8 and has received no answer.

Why It Matters

Bentonville is Walmart's hometown, and Walmart has already had drones at Store #100 with an earlier provider. If Wing is missing from Bentonville after a unanimous local approval, the reasons matter. They could be about the economics of the site, the airspace, Walmart dividing markets between Wing and Zipline, or a timetable that simply hasn't been announced.

The permit is also worth reading for its conditions, whatever happened to the project. Staff recommended monthly flight-volume reports, access to NTSB-reportable incident data on request, measured noise compliance at the property line, quarterly airspace meetings, revocation at any time, and a one-year term. DroneXL's editor called them the most useful drone nest conditions he has read this year. As Wing and Walmart move toward more than 270 stores, other cities considering parking-lot nests could use Bentonville's conditions as a model, as DroneXL suggests. That would give local governments a measure of control in an area where flight rules are set federally.

For now, the record is split. The city approved Wing in Bentonville. The FAA's public documents for Arkansas cover Zipline. Wing's own list of its Walmart metros leaves out Walmart's hometown.

Sources