Flex: Deliver outside the geofence with the airplane mode trick

It happens all the time on Amazon Flex: You’re ready to finish a delivery, but the app won’t let you because you’re not close enough to the delivery location.

Did you know that there’s a trick you can use to complete a delivery without being inside the geofence? It’s called the airplane mode trick, and it will save you a call to support or save you a return trip to the warehouse.

Step-by-step: How to deliver outside the geofence by going into airplane mode

1. Go into airplane mode
2. Make sure that Bluetooth is still enabled
3. Select the question mark icon in the upper corner of the Flex app
4. Select “GPS not working”
5. Swipe to finish delivering the package

That’s it! You just delivered a package outside the geofence without contacting support.

Airplane mode trick not working? Troubleshooting steps

• Make sure Bluetooth is turned on. Turning off airplane mode can also turn off Bluetooth
• Try the steps a second time. It doesn’t always work on the first try
• Tap “GPS not working” more than once before you try to swipe to finish (Reported by AlternativeFact776)
• Turn off your cellular data and try again
• Call support to complete the delivery

When the airplane mode trick comes in handy

• When you’re at an apartment complex and you can’t access the customer’s front door and want to complete the delivery in a lobby or outside gate
• When you can’t get the code to a gated community and want to deliver at the gate 
• When you have no GPS or cell service in a rural area

But don’t abuse it: You shouldn’t use the airplane mode trick to complete a delivery that you didn’t actually complete. Customers will report the missing package and you’ll eventually be deactivated.

This saves you a call to support

You can deliver outside the geofence by contacting support. After you inform the agent that GPS isn’t working and you’ve completed the delivery, support agents can finalize it for you.

But contacting support can take 5–10 minutes, and the airplane mode trick takes seconds.

But it doesn’t always work

Going into airplane mode to avoid the geofence is a trick discovered by Flex drivers, and it is not 100% reliable. It’s not something built into the app.

There can be quirks that prevent it from working: Variations with your phone, your phone service, your version of the Flex app, or your GPS may cause it to fail.

Sometimes, app changes completely disable the trick, but it often starts working again a few weeks later. Keep your eyes on Flex driver forums to see the latest ways to do this helpful trick.

Never return a package unless absolutely necessary!

The airplane mode trick is a tool that drivers use to deliver every single package without ever having to return to the warehouse. You aren’t paid for the return trip and you’ll take a hit to your standings for undelivered packages, so you always want to deliver a package if possible.

Delivering every package might mean that you have to get creative with your delivery locations, and you’ll have to rely on either the airplane mode trick or frequent calls to support to get around the geofence.

But as long as you leave the package where your customer can actually find it, go ahead and deliver it with the airplane mode trick, skip the return trip, and avoid dings for undelivered packages.