Social media footage captured Walmart’s delivery drones zipping through the skies across parts of the United States, dropping off customers’ orders within 30 minutes.Walmart, in partnership with Wing, the drone delivery company owned by Google parent Alphabet, currently offered service from 18 stores in the Dallas area. By next summer, the program was set to expand to 100 Walmart locations across Atlanta, Charlotte (North Carolina), Houston, Orlando, and Tampa in Florida, reports AP.“As we look ahead, drone delivery will remain a key part of our commitment to redefining retail. We’re pushing the boundaries of convenience to better serve our customers, making shopping faster and easier than ever before,” said Greg Cathey, the senior vice president of Walmart US Transformation and Innovation.Unlike traditional delivery services, where a single person may deliver a truckload of packages, drones typically carried just one small order per trip.Wing’s drones could handle packages weighing up to 2.5 pounds (approximately 1.1 kg) and could travel as far as 12 miles (approximately 19 km) round trip, and be monitored by a single pilot overseeing up to 32 drones, reported AP. “This is real drone delivery at scale,” said Adam Woodworth, the CEO of Wing. “People all around the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex have made drone delivery part of their normal shopping habits over the past year. Now we’re excited to share this ultra-fast delivery experience with millions more people across many more US cities.”Though drone deliveries were still considered a novelty, the items they carried were often everyday essentials. According to Walmart, the most popular products from the more than 150,000 deliveries it had completed since 2021 included ice cream, eggs, and Reese’s peanut butter cups, reported AP.The FAA last week proposed a new rule aimed at making it easier for companies to operate drones beyond an operator’s visual line of sight, enabling longer-distance flights. Currently, only a few companies could do so, having secured special waivers and air carrier certification to deliver packages.
