COSTELLO: It seems like drones are everywhere these days from the military and companies like retail giant, Amazon, want to use drones to deliver your orders. The movie industry also wants to start using drones for filming. One company wanted to deliver beer with drones. Now the FAA has stepped in OK'ing the use of commercial drone flights. All of those things may soon come true. Rene Marsh has it all. Good morning.</s>RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION AND GOVERNMENT REGULATION CORRESPONDENT: This is the first time that the FAA has authorized a company to fly commercial drone over land. Now, the FAA has given energy company, BP, and Arrow Environment, which operates what's called unmanned aircraft systems, also known as drones, the green light to fly this and you're looking at it. A 4.5-foot long drone in Alaska. It can be hand launched like you see the person doing there in that photo. It has a wing span of nine feet. It will be flying at low altitude, but it will always have to be within the operator's sight. It will be used to survey BP pipe lines, roads and equipment. We know that will happen in Alaska, a very remote area. It is one of the largest oil fields in the U.S. right now though. We should point out that drones are not allowed for commercial use unless the FAA approves it. The only other commercial drone the agency has approved is one that is flying in the arctic, but big picture here. This is really just a small step toward that big goal of fully integrating drones into our airspace. As you know, the FAA estimates, get this, in the next five years as many as 7,500 drones could be flying in the U.S. airspace at any given time. So they want to make sure you could do this in a safe way.
FAA Approves First Commercial Drone Flights