‘Ultra-Fast’: Walmart expands drone delivery service across America- Video
Social media footage captured Walmart’s delivery drone through the sky in some parts of the United States, leaving customers’ orders within 30 minutes.Walmart, in partnership with a drone delivery company Wing owned by Google parent alphabet, is currently offered service from 18 stores in the Dallas region. By the next summer, the program was scheduled to expand up to 100 Walmart locations in Tampa in Atlanta, Charlotte (Northern Carolina), Houston, Orlando and Florida.Senior Vice President of Walmart US Transformation and Innovation, Greg Cathe said, “As we look forward, the drone delivery will remain an important part of our commitment to redefine retail. We are advancing the boundaries of convenience to serve our customers better, which has made the purchase much faster and easier than before.”Unlike traditional delivery services, where a single person can distribute truck loads of packages, drones usually carry only a small order per trip.Wing’s drones can handle a package weighing up to 2.5 pounds (about 1.1 kg) and travel up to 12 miles (about 19 km) goal, and can be monitored by a single pilot up to 32 drones, stated by AP. “This is the real drone delivery on the scale,” said Adam Woodworth, CEO of Wing. “People around the Dallas-Fort Worth MT have made part of their normal purchasing habits in the last one year. Now we are excited to share this ultra-fast delivery experience with millions and people in many more American cities.”Although drone delivery was still considered a novelty, the items they had taken were often everyday imperative. According to Walmart, the most popular products of more than 150,000 delivery since 2021 included ice cream, eggs and peanut butter cups of Reese, said AP.The FAA proposed a new rule last week, aimed at operating a drone beyond an operator’s visual line, which enabled long distance flights. Currently, only a few companies can do the special discounts and air career certification to give the package.
