One weekend day last summer, Nadine Riordan says she could see up to 10 drones an hour from her home in Blanchardstown, Ireland.
“The name ‘drone’ is very fitting, because the noise is just this drone — this awful drone,” Riordan said. “They’re like mini-helicopters or mini-lawnmowers that fly above your heads.”
While Tulsans await the arrival of Manna Air Delivery’s drones, residents of the company’s home country are sounding the alarm. They’ve been filling the Tulsa Flyer’s Instagram comments with less-than-fond recollections of the deliveries’ look and sound, so we reached out to hear more about their experiences.
Dan Stephens, another resident of the Dublin suburb, says the noise is particularly loud near the drone hubs or bases.
“Some people will just put up with it,” he said. “But when you’re directly affected by it, obviously the noise pollution is a big thing.”
Stephens says a community group called Drone Action D15 played a key role in organizing opposition to Manna.
“These were residents who were badly affected. I think a lot of them live near the takeoff zone, which is especially loud. Landing and takeoff are especially loud,” Stephens said.
Seamus Doyle, a Blanchardstown resident who had been part of Drone Action D15, compared the drones’ buzzing to a “motorcycle going over your back yard.”
“When it’s going out in the street, well, it’s a motorcycle in the street — it might be noisy,” Doyle said. “But you don’t have it going over your back yard.”
As part of Manna’s Tulsa expansion, the company has applied to build a hub on a vacant lot on Cherry Street just east of Chipotle. Manna CEO Bobby Healy told the Flyer the company hopes to build up to 40 hubs across the city.
Tulsans are already skeptical, concerned about the noise and critical of elected officials for not inviting citizens to share their options before the expansion was announced.
“To bring the lieutenant governor, the governor and mayor, and act like this is a done deal, when they’re still applying for permits and none of the neighbors know — that’s just bad,” said Diama Norris, a Swan Lake resident. “They had a real opportunity to talk to people.”
The city responded to those concerns with a statement, saying Tulsa has positioned itself for several years to become “drone capital of the world,” and leaders would pursue “additional public engagement if appropriate.”
Tulsans have an opportunity to share their feedback and ask questions Tuesday at a town hall hosted by State Rep. Meloyde Blancett, D-Tulsa, and Tulsa’s District 4 City Councilor Laura Bellis with Manna representatives in attendance. The town hall starts at 6 p.m. at the Centennial Center in Veterans Park, 1028 E. 6th St.
Manna pauses operations in Ireland
About three weeks before Healy shook hands and celebrated with Mayor Monroe Nichols and Gov. Kevin Stitt about the company’s planned expansion to Tulsa, the Irish drone service announced June 19 it would be halting delivery operations in Ireland. The company cited “the absence of a clear national policy framework for commercial drone delivery” in Ireland as its reasoning.
According to the Irish Times, Manna halted deliveries shortly after multiple local government authorities in Dublin prevented them from building bases or continuing operations.
On June 16, the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council denied Manna permission to create a new delivery hub near Dundrum Town Centre. In May, Fingal County Council denied the company from continuing to make deliveries from a base in Coolmine Industrial Estate, a neighborhood in Blanchardstown.
In April, Cork City Council’s planning authority sent letters to Manna raising concerns about its base at the Marina Market on Centre Park Road and a constructed “cabin and boundary fencing.”
During Manna’s expansion announcement in Tulsa July 8, Healy said he was proud of the company’s Irish roots, but he made clear the difficulties of building a drone delivery service in Ireland.
“This is a trillion dollar industry that nobody has started to capture yet. So, we’re building something impossible, and we started it in the stupidest place in the world to build a drone delivery company, which is Ireland, where the wind goes upwards, the rain goes sideways, and everybody complains and nobody buys anything.
“We’re backed by the Irish government, and we’ve had a wonderful home in Ireland,” he said. “But it had been time for us to start growing some real strength and start to take an important leadership position in the United States.”
Doyle believes community pushback played a key role in the company’s decision to pause operations in Ireland.
“We were campaigning individually. We came together last July, and campaigned — I suppose — for almost a year until the drones stopped,” Doyle said. “Why they really stopped, I suppose it can be hard to say — there’s different things said and different theories — but I certainly think the public’s reaction was a huge part of that.”
The Flyer contacted Manna asking about the pushback on social media. In a written statement, Terri O’Keefe, Manna’s director of corporate affairs, said the decision to cease operations in Ireland was “driven by an uncertain regulatory environment and a prolonged, unclear permitting process, not by customer demand or satisfaction.”
“We operated in Blanchardstown, Ireland for 28 months and made almost 90,000 deliveries,” O’Keefe said. “During that time, we achieved a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 90 out of 100 in Ireland—a widely recognized measure of customer satisfaction and loyalty in Europe, a market where consumers typically score more conservatively than in many other countries.”
The statement continues, saying the company will be upfront, answer questions and adjust “where it makes sense” as it launches operations in Tulsa.
In the meantime, Riordan says Tulsans with questions or concerns should reach out to their local officials.
“Any local politicians, if they want your vote, go hassle them,” she said.
This story has been updated to attribute Manna’s statement to Terri O’Keefe.
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