Alphabet’s Wing To Begin Drone Deliveries In Dallas-Fort Worth on April 7th
Alphabet-owned company Wing has announced they will begin drone deliveries in the Dallas Fort-Worth metroplex location starting on April 7th, 2022. In a week rife with drone delivery news after it turns out Amazon is ramping up its drone testing in Oregon this year.
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To begin, Walgreens is going to be their primary delivery partner allowing customers to order health and wellness products directly to their homes via drone delivery.
The Wing delivery drone can carry packages no heavier than 1.5kg (3.3 pounds) on round trips up to 10km (6 miles) away. The drones are fully autonomous but will be monitored by pilots who can take control if something goes wrong during the flight. There are also redundant motors, batteries, and navigation systems to help prevent accidents in the event of system failure.
“We’re going to be starting small in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, with service to tens of thousands of suburban homes in the City of Frisco and Town of Little Elm.”
“We’ve staged drones at a local Walgreens store, so they’re ready to fly health and wellness products directly to customers’ homes.”
Wing’s Dallas Flyers Email Newsletter
Wing To Scale Texas Drone Deliveries
In addition to Walgreens, they will also be delivering items with three other partners in Frisco and Little Elm. Which will include delivering ice cream from Blue Bell Creameries which they assure people will remain frozen even on the hottest Texas days, prescription pet medications from easyvet, and first aid kits from Texas Health.
Wing has completed over 200,000 real drone deliveries so far but with the majority of these taking place in small rural locations. This launch in Texas marks a big milestone for the company who are now launching a service in a major city area. Whilst the metroplex area will include tens of thousands of homes Wing are being careful to manage expectations.
“I do want to set clear expectations: not everyone who lives within range of our drones will be able to order on Day 1. We’re going to invite customers in groups to make sure everyone has a good first experience with drone delivery,”
Adam Woodworth, CTO, Wing
This is a big step for drone delivery in the mainland US, and I’m sure Amazon and many others will be keeping a close eye on Wing over the next few weeks to see how the first city launch rolls out.
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Dave Furness
Dave is a Co-Founder of eSeller365. For over 10 years he has been involved with eCommerce with a particular interest in the marketplaces and the huge opportunities available for sellers when utilizing a multi-channel strategy. After a year of being the UK’s youngest eCommerce consultant, he built an education platform called UnderstandingE that showed the world how to utilize Magento as the “Third Generation of Multi-Channel software”.
Dave has also created a YouTube channel dedicated to entrepreneurship and eCommerce as well as a podcast dedicated to mental health awareness. When Dave isn’t working his main interests include learning and playing Chess, researching the Crypto and NFT space, and trying to find the nearest beach.