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Google's drone delivery company is partnering with Walgreens to deliver meds, food, and household items to customers in Dallashttps://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/news/googleaposs-drone-delivery-company-is-partnering-with-walgreens-to-deliver-meds-food-and-household-items-to-customers-in-dallas/slidelist/87164530.cms2021-10-20T20:24:48+05:30

Google's drone delivery company is partnering with Walgreens to deliver meds, food, and household items to customers in Dallas

Taylor RainsOct 20, 2021, 20:24 IST

Google-owned drone delivery company Wing is bringing air delivery to the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area using specially made aircraft capable of flying store-to-door in just a matter of minutes.

Until now, Wing only served small cities in the US, focusing on places like pharmacies, local coffee shops, and local hardware stores. Customers use a mobile app to place orders and then receive their items via drones.

However, the addition of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area proves on-demand air delivery is achievable in major US cities, negating the need for people to get in their car or deal with 5 o'clock traffic to pick up small items. The service is set to launch in the next couple of months.

Dallas-Fort Worth will be the first major metro city in the US to have air drone delivery, and it will be the largest residential delivery operation in the world.

To start, Wing is partnering with Walgreens to bring over-the-counter medications, food, and household items to residents in the Dallas suburbs of Frisco and Little Elm.

The company's aircraft will be stationed in a small hangar at an existing Walgreens parking lot. The containers make it easy for stores to deploy drones from the roof, parking lot, or small areas near the building, and the hub can be set up in just a few hours.

Wing's zero-emission electric drones are designed to operate in densely populated metropolitan cities in the US and are overseen by trained drone pilots on the ground.

To safely operate in metro cities, each drone is equipped with special unmanned traffic management software that plans each delivery route "using local weather data, terrain and airspace maps, and other drone activity." The information is then sent to other aircraft so the drone can safely navigate to the customer.

The drone is also engineered with both fixed wings and hover propellers that allow it to transition between helicopter and airplane flying, ensuring items are balanced and steady throughout each flight.

Part of Wing's partnership will see Walgreens employees packaging and loading the items onto the drones instead of Wing's workers, which is a first for the company.

Wing is also opening a facility at Frisco Station, which is a new urban-living concept north of Dallas. The space will have the conventional delivery capabilities but will initially focus on "exploring new use cases, community demonstrations, and public tours."

To prepare for the launch, Wing will conduct test flights and delivery demonstrations around Frisco and Little Elm and get feedback from customers. Over the next couple of months, the company expects to launch a full commercial air delivery service in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.

The US is an expansion of Wing's current operation, which is also in Australia and Finland.

The company operates the world's only rooftop drone delivery service out of Logan, Australia. The drones take off from the roof of the Grand Plaza shopping center and have made over 2,500 contactless deliveries to people in nearby areas.

According to Wing, last-mile deliveries, which is the movement of goods from the transport hub to its final destination, account for 15-20% of the total cost of retail transactions, either in the form of delivery fees or the time it takes for customers to pick up their items.

However, Wing's drone delivery service could change that by making last-minute deliveries more sustainable and efficient. According to Wing, if the company's drones are used to deliver 4-6% of household items, Australia's retail sales would increase by $2.2 billion by 2030.

Wing isn't the only air delivery service in action in the US right now. Israel-based Flytrex has been delivering Starbucks and Walmart items to residents in Fayetteville, North Carolina since 2020.

Flytrex says its service is more efficient than drivers contracted under Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub. According to the company, contractors deliver about 2.5 deliveries each hour, while Flytrex's drones can deliver 10 in the same amount of time, significantly lowering costs for restaurants.

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