While the College Station program continues and the tech giant looks to expand its delivery service, CNBC reports that not everyone in College Station is happy with it. The drones in particular are damn loud.

“It sounds like a giant beehive,” John Case, a College Station resident, told CNBC. “You know it’s coming because it’s pretty loud.”

In March, Amazon showed readers how the College Station facility works. It showed employees picking up packages and loading them into the drones, which weigh about 80 pounds and fly through the air at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour. It even showed a GIF of a drone dropping off a delivery in front of a home.

In 2023, KXAN in Austin reported that the program had resulted in thousands of deliveries and that College Station customers could have prescription drugs delivered to their homes by drone. In May, Amazon sent the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) a proposal to expand Prime Air by service size (43.7 square miles to 174 square miles) and by number of daily deliveries (200 to 469).

But in July, College Station Mayor John Nichols wrote a letter to the FAA asking them to delay Prime Air’s expansion because of the noise.

“Due to the significant concerns expressed by residents, the City is requesting that the increase in service levels related to the number of deliveries and the expansion of operating days and hours be postponed until Amazon Prime Air has implemented additional noise mitigation measures,” Nichols wrote.

CNBC reported that College Station officials found the noise from a single drone to be between 47 and 61 decibels, comparable to the sound of a dishwasher running. Residents told CNBC that a drone delivery is like a fly buzzing around you for far too long. Amazon said it is listening to residents.

“We value the College Station community and consider local feedback whenever possible in our operational decisions for Prime Air,” Amazon spokesman Sam Stephenson said in a statement to CNBC. “We are proud of the thousands of deliveries we have made and the hundreds of customers we serve.”

Amazon hopes to replace its current drones with a new model called the MK30 by the end of 2024. Amazon told Nichols that the MK30 drones would be about 40 percent quieter than the current aircraft, meaning the sounds of buzzing bees and annoying flies could soon be a thing of the past.

But will that even matter in College Station? Amazon reportedly has no plans to stay in the city after its lease on the space expires in September 2025.