Wing to invest up to $125M in a Fort Worth drone factory as its Walmart network heads towards 270 stores

TLDR

• Wing says it will invest up to $125 million over two years in a 15,000-square-foot drone factory in Fort Worth.¹²
• The plant would create up to 100 manufacturing jobs and, Wing says, build tens of thousands of aircraft a year.¹
• Wing's Walmart partnership is set to cover more than 270 stores, with seven new metro areas planned.¹

Wing Aviation, the Alphabet-owned delivery company, announced on 6 November that it will invest up to $125 million over the next two years in a new 15,000-square-foot factory in Fort Worth, Texas, to build its next-generation delivery aircraft.¹² Wing officials said the site will create up to 100 manufacturing jobs and let the company produce tens of thousands of drones a year.¹ They also said the investment expands domestic production ahead of the FAA's beyond visual line of sight framework.¹

DroneXL notes that $125 million is an "up to" figure from Wing's own post, which describes direct manufacturing spending at Fort Worth alongside unspecified research and engineering spending in California.² DroneXL says the post gives no split between the two, no street address, no production start date and no name for the aircraft, and that Wing has not said how many aircraft fly its 70-plus sites today.²

The Fort Worth Report says Wing operates at nearly 70 Walmart locations, including 19 in the Fort Worth area, and has completed more than 1 million home deliveries this year.¹ The Walmart partnership is set to expand to more than 270 stores, with deliveries planned in San Diego, Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Salt Lake City and the San Francisco Bay area.¹ Walmart also contracts Zipline for North Texas deliveries, and DroneXL notes the announcement came one day after Zipline's $1.5 billion raise and 300 more Walmart sites.¹² DroneXL adds that the FAA's Part 108 rule has been in White House review since 10 July, and that the 2025 draft ties airworthiness acceptance for foreign-built aircraft to a bilateral agreement with the country of origin.²

Why it matters: Wing says the plant can build tens of thousands of aircraft a year, but the figures are Wing's own, and the sources give no current fleet size or production start date.¹²