Drone-delivery startup Manna has broken ground on a Tulsa factory that the company says will create more than 1,000 jobs over three years, making it the Irish firm’s first full-scale metropolitan operation in the United States. The company plans to hire 200 to 300 operations team members within roughly 12 months and eventually run 40 bases across the city by mid-2027. Whether Manna can hit those targets depends less on construction timelines than on how fast the Federal Aviation Administration processes the regulatory approvals that no package-delivery drone operator has yet secured at this scale.
Manna’s Tulsa bet and the FAA clock it cannot control
Manna chose Tulsa as its central U.S. base, with a goal of reaching 90% of the city’s residents within a year. The company has lined up partnerships with DoorDash, McDonald’s, and Uber Eats to supply the delivery volume needed to justify that footprint. Construction on the factory is already underway, and manufacturing is expected to begin in about a year.
The real bottleneck sits in Washington. The FAA requires drone operators conducting commercial package delivery to obtain certification under Part 135, the same framework that governs air-cargo carriers. On top of that, any operator flying beyond visual line of sight, which is how autonomous delivery drones actually cover a city, needs separate exemptions or waivers from the agency. No public record confirms that Manna has received either approval for Tulsa operations. That gap between a factory under construction and flights that still need federal sign-off is where the risk concentrates.
Congress tried to speed things up. The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 created a Section 927 waiver pathway designed to let drone companies obtain advanced-operations approvals more efficiently than through traditional rulemaking or individual exemptions. The agency has published guidance on how the process works, but no public evidence shows that any package-delivery operator has yet received a Section 927 waiver. Manna’s 12-month hiring plan for 200 to 300 operations staff essentially bets that the FAA will process these approvals on a timeline that matches corporate ambition rather than bureaucratic precedent.
Factory numbers, partner names, and what the company has put on the record
The core job figure comes directly from Manna’s own announcement: more than 1,000 positions in Tulsa over three years. The company has not broken down how many of those roles will be in manufacturing versus flight operations versus support functions. No city or state economic-development filing independently confirms the projection or details any incentive package tied to it. Readers should treat the 1,000-job number as a company forecast, not a verified commitment backed by public contracts.
The operational rollout plan is more specific. Manna intends to operate from 40 bases across Tulsa by mid-2027, a density that would let its drones cover nearly the entire metro area. The company’s named delivery partners, DoorDash, McDonald’s, and Uber Eats, give it access to high-frequency order streams that could sustain that base count if regulatory clearance arrives on schedule. The FAA’s own guidance on drone package delivery makes clear that operators must hold Part 135 certification and secure additional waivers for beyond-visual-line-of-sight flights before any commercial service can begin.
Manna’s executive chair Kenn Ricci has described the planned positions as high-tech, high-paying jobs. That language sets a public benchmark. If the factory opens and the roles skew toward warehouse logistics rather than engineering or flight operations, the gap between promise and outcome will be easy to measure.
Open questions that will shape Manna’s Tulsa timeline
Three things are missing from the public record. First, there is no confirmation that Manna has applied for or received Part 135 certification from the FAA for its Tulsa operations. Without that certificate, no commercial deliveries can legally begin, regardless of how many bases the company builds. Second, no Section 927 waiver has been publicly granted to any package-delivery drone operator, so there is no precedent for how long the process takes. If the FAA moves slowly, Manna could have a factory producing drones that are not yet cleared to fly commercially over American neighborhoods. Third, no independent government document, whether from the City of Tulsa, the State of Oklahoma, or a federal grant program, has validated the 1,000-job projection or disclosed public incentives attached to it.
The practical question for Tulsa residents and potential job applicants is straightforward: the factory is real and construction has started, but the regulatory approvals that would turn it into an active delivery hub have not been confirmed. Anyone considering a move or career change based on the 1,000-job headline should watch for two specific signals in the coming months. The first is whether the FAA publicly acknowledges a Part 135 certificate tied to Manna’s U.S. operations, either through the agency’s own databases or through a company announcement that can be cross-checked against federal records. That certificate would indicate that regulators are comfortable treating Manna as an air carrier for package delivery, even if additional waivers are still pending.
The second signal is evidence that a Section 927 waiver, or an equivalent beyond-visual-line-of-sight approval, has been granted for flights over Tulsa. Because these waivers deal with aircraft operating over people, roads, and homes, they are likely to come with detailed operating conditions. Those conditions will determine how close to Manna’s 40-base, citywide-coverage vision the company can actually get. A waiver that restricts flights to certain corridors or limits operations to daylight hours and good weather, for example, would still be progress but might constrain the economics of on-demand food and retail delivery.
What success and delay would look like on the ground
If approvals arrive on a timeline that matches Manna’s construction schedule, Tulsa could see a phased rollout that starts with a handful of bases serving early partners and gradually expands toward the 40-base target. Hiring would likely follow a similar curve: an initial wave of manufacturing, maintenance, and operations roles, followed by more specialized positions in data analysis, route planning, and regulatory compliance as the network scales. In that scenario, the company’s more than 1,000-job projection could become a reasonable, if still ambitious, benchmark for local economic impact.
Delay would look different. A completed or nearly completed factory might sit underutilized while FAA reviews continue, with only a skeletal staff on site. Manna could shift some production to serve non-U.S. markets, but the Tulsa jobs tied directly to local flight operations would lag. The company might still hire in areas like software, safety engineering, or testing, yet the broad-based employment story suggested by the initial announcement would slip to the right on the calendar.
There is also a middle path in which Manna receives limited approvals that allow tightly controlled pilot programs but not the full, citywide service it has described. In that case, the company could operate from a smaller number of bases, perhaps in less densely populated neighborhoods, while collecting safety and reliability data to support future expansions. Jobs would materialize, but in smaller numbers and with a heavier tilt toward technical and regulatory roles rather than large-scale operations teams.
How Tulsa can track the promises being made
For local officials, community groups, and job seekers, the key is to separate what is already in place from what depends on future decisions. The construction site and any visible factory build-out are tangible indicators that Manna is committing capital to Tulsa. The partnerships with major delivery platforms suggest that, if regulators allow it, there will be real demand for the service. But the scale and timing of hiring rest on federal approvals that the company does not control.
Monitoring FAA dockets, city council agendas, and state economic-development announcements over the next year will provide early clues about whether Manna’s Tulsa project is tracking to its own timeline. Clear evidence of a Part 135 certificate and a beyond-visual-line-of-sight waiver specific to Tulsa would signal that the regulatory pieces are snapping into place. Absent that, the factory may stand as a visible symbol of an industry whose technology is ready, but whose future still hinges on how quickly safety regulators are willing to let autonomous aircraft share the sky with everyone else.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
