Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse, New York, opened a drone port on Tuesday for Air Upstate, the program that flies lab specimens, medications and blood products between Upstate facilities. The program already has clearance to fly to Wynn Hospital in Utica, a hospital Upstate does not own, CNY Central reported.
Air Upstate has completed 8,838 medication deliveries by drone since 2023. CNY Central described the operation as running in partnership with Causey Aviation, the FAA-certificated company Upstate named as its drone operator in 2023. When Upstate announced its FAA waiver in April, its release described Air Upstate itself as the operator, a change DroneXL flagged three weeks ago when Upstate hired a former FAA official to run the program.
Upstate Is Building Its Drone Program Around A 2027 Pathology Institute
Upstate is building its drone program around a pathology institute scheduled to open in June 2027. Robert Corona, the pathologist who runs Upstate University Hospital as CEO, said the drones will be central to the institute and can make deliveries in just three minutes, according to CNY Central’s report.
The institute, under construction in East Syracuse, includes a drone bay for recharging and maintaining the aircraft. Air Upstate already flies two routes. Lab specimens go between the Upstate Transplant Center in downtown Syracuse and the Upstate Cancer Center. Prescriptions go from the Upstate Outpatient Pharmacy to patients being discharged from Upstate Community Hospital.
Upstate Medical University President Dr. Mantosh Dewan called the opening a historic day: “We want to fly into the future.” He credited government support for getting Air Upstate launched.
Air Upstate Is Cleared For Utica, With Causey Aviation As Its Partner
Causey Aviation Unmanned holds an FAA Part 135 air carrier certificate. Upstate said in 2023 that Causey was the fifth US company to earn one for healthcare drone deliveries. Causey also flies Flytrex delivery drones in North Carolina and Texas.
Causey secured that certificate in February 2023, with Flytrex as its delivery partner.
Wynn Hospital belongs to the Mohawk Valley Health System and opened in downtown Utica in October 2023, replacing two older MVHS hospitals. It sits at the far end of the roughly 50-mile (80-kilometer) beyond-visual-line-of-sight corridor the FAA granted Upstate in February, a waiver that runs through June 2029. The aircraft built for that distance is already in Upstate’s fleet: in 2023, Upstate became the first US owner of the RigiTech Eiger, a fixed-wing VTOL with a nine-foot (2.7-meter) wingspan that RigiTech rates at up to 60 mph (97 km/h).
CNY Central’s report gives no date for a first delivery to Wynn and does not say whose certificate the Utica flights will run under.
DroneXL’s Take
The drone port is the photo op. Whether drones ever land at Wynn Hospital depends on who holds the FAA certificate for that run, and Upstate’s public answer has moved from Causey in 2023, to Air Upstate itself in April, to a partnership with Causey in this week’s coverage.
Michigan has the counterexample. Munson Healthcare’s medical drone trial in Traverse City was supposed to start its second phase in May with DroneUp as the licensed operator. DroneUp quit the project, and the flights were rescheduled to restart this Tuesday, with aircraft maker blueflite taking over the FAA paperwork. Hospitals buy the drones and stage the press conferences. The certificate usually belongs to someone else, and that company can leave.
Nothing on the record says Upstate has that problem. It owns its aircraft and holds a waiver through 2029. I’d still like Upstate to name the operator for the Utica run before the first flight, because a delivery into another health system’s hospital is where an unclear certificate holder stops everything.
Source: CNY Central, “New drone port at Upstate speeds transport of lab specimens, meds and blood products,” by Matthew Benninger, Oct. 6, 2026; RigiTech via UAS Magazine
DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.
