Manna Air Delivery has put a number on its new Tulsa drone bases: up to 24 deliveries an hour each. The figure is in a release Manna posted on October 13 and sent over Business Wire on October 14, covering the three bases it is adding to its first US site on Cherry Street. Two of them, at The Shops at Alameda and Plaza Santa Cecilia, began flying the week of October 6, and Manna’s Tulsa page lists the third, Garnett Plaza, as opening soon.

The same release commits Manna to more than 1,000 American manufacturing jobs over three years, says its first batch of “made in America” aircraft is in production, and counts almost 400,000 commercial delivery flights in seven years. On October 19, the Tulsa Flyer asked Cherry Street restaurants how many drone orders they get. The owner of Andolini’s Pizzeria said 10 to 20 on a good day and three on others.

Manna’s 24 an Hour Is 768 Deliveries a Week on Tulsa’s Launch Hours

Twenty-four deliveries an hour across the launch schedule FOX23 reported, noon to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday, is 192 a day and 768 a week per base. On the full schedule Manna has promised, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week, the same rate reaches 2,016.

The rate matches the arithmetic DroneXL ran on October 6, when CEO Bobby Healy told FOX23 each east Tulsa base could complete thousands of deliveries a week: three aircraft at the eight sorties an hour Healy has quoted since 2025 is 24. Manna’s release is the first time the company has published the per-base number itself. It is a ceiling: the aircraft sit out heavy rain and winds above 20 knots (23 mph, 37 km/h), Manna told KJRH in September, and the release does not say when the full schedule starts. News On 6 listed five launch days rather than four, which lifts the week to 960.

Cherry Street Restaurants Count 3 to 20 Drone Orders a Day

Andolini’s owner Mike Bausch told the Tulsa Flyer that drone orders run “10 to 20 a day, then other days it’s like three.” Some days Manna does not fly. Parea Coffee’s Mason Galle counts zero to three on a slow day and seven to 10 on a fast one.

Roka manager Jennifer Lopez put her restaurant at three or four Manna orders a week, and Sapori owner Al Hashemi said he had expected a lot more. Those are Cherry Street numbers, from the base that has flown since August 12. The east Tulsa bases were two weeks old when the Flyer reported, and Galle said Manna runs frequent promotions, free delivery among them. Alejandro Garcia, executive director of the Tulsa Global District, told the paper an adjustment period is expected. A base serves several restaurants, and in east Tulsa, Baga Sushi’s Juan Carlos Barrios told the Flyer that customers are already ordering by drone, without giving a count.

The 1,000 Tulsa Jobs Are Now All Manufacturing, and US Production Has Started, Manna Says

On July 8, Manna promised more than 1,000 Tulsa jobs over three years across flight operations, commercial, customer support, manufacturing, maintenance and business functions. The October 14 release describes the same 1,000 as “high-spec manufacturing jobs,” and says the first batch of made-in-America aircraft is already in production.

The release’s own summary bullet still calls them “American jobs.” In July, Healy told TechCrunch that factory construction was under way in Tulsa and manufacturing would begin in about a year, with the operations team growing to 200 or 300 people over 12 months. The release does not say where the first batch is being built, how many aircraft it holds, or whether the Tulsa factory is finished, and Manna’s newsroom carries no post on the factory between the July 8 announcement and this one. The jobs figure has already moved once: Healy told XPONENTIAL in May that Tulsa would get 2,000 to 3,000, and the July announcement settled on 1,000.

The release says the planned bases go across several states, Oklahoma and Texas among them, without a count. Manna has flown in the Dallas-Fort Worth area since 2023, at Hillwood’s AllianceTexas development, and its website lists Dallas as coming next. Executive chairman and president Kenny Jacobs said in the release: “We are building our aircraft here, hiring here and scaling here.”

DroneXL’s Take

Manna keeps answering a demand question with supply numbers. Twenty-four an hour, 1,000 jobs, 400,000 flights: all of them describe what Manna can do, and none says what Tulsa is ordering. The only demand figure in the city came from a pizzeria owner talking to a local paper, and it runs from three to 20 a day. I like the shape of the build-out, with small bases in strip-mall lots serving local restaurants, from a company that Fingal’s planners pushed out of Dublin. Two weeks is also too early to judge east Tulsa, and Cherry Street is two months in and still running free-delivery promotions. But Manna chose to rate its bases at 24 an hour in a press release, and my read is that it owns that number now. At that rate one base covers Andolini’s best day before 1 p.m. Manna has the number that settles this, deliveries completed per base per week, and it should publish it. Until it does, a pizzeria’s tally is the only demand figure Tulsa has.

Sources: Manna Air Delivery, Business Wire, Tulsa Flyer, FOX23, KJRH, News On 6, TechCrunch

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.