Deliveries-By-Drone Continue Expanding. Pizza Deliveries Planned for Seattle

"Pagliacci Pizza is partnering with drone company Zipline to begin drone delivery to customers in the Seattle area," reports the Seattle Times, citing a statement this week from Zipline. "If all goes well, the company expects to deliver pizzas in 2024," reports local news outlet KUOW, noting that Zipline has battery-powered drones that hover above a customer's location "and lowers the delivery on a tethered droid." "Obviously, it seems pretty sci-fi and a lot of customers think this is totally insane when they first hear about it," said Keller Cliffton, cofounder and CEO of Zipline, a delivery drone company. "But what has really struck us is that there are about seven days of sci-fi magical amazement, and then on day eight people are basically bored of it — bored of it in the way that there's no way they're ever going back to the old way of receiving things... Anybody can pull out a phone, press a button on that phone, and place an order that can then be delivered autonomously to the home in a way that is 10 times as fast, half the cost, and fully zero emission compared to the way we do instant delivery today." Scenes of hot pizzas lowering out the sky onto Seattle porches are contingent on Zipline receiving approval from the FAA for an operations and safety plan. That plan is in the works but not yet submitted to the agency. The FAA may impose restrictions tailored to Seattle's busy airspace such as on flight altitudes, hours of operation and places to avoid... The plans don't end with pizzas. Last year, Zipline announced a separate effort to deliver medical products and lab samples for the MultiCare Health System around Tacoma... As with the pizza proposal, the earliest estimates for medical deliveries around Tacoma are sometime in 2024. Zipline has also made delivery deals with supplement retailer GNC in Salt Lake City, and with Associated Couriers in Long Island, New York to deliver medications... [Zipline] has already been delivering some products for Walmart to customers in the Bentonville, Arkansas area and prescription drugs for some health care providers in parts of North Carolina and Utah. But the Washington state plans would involve newer types of drones, which the company calls Platform 2 Zips. Pagliacci Pizza's co-owner told the news outlet that the drones "will enable us to scale our deliveries sustainably with up to 97% fewer emissions than cars." They told CNET drones would deliver pizzas "while they're still hot," and told the Seattle Times that drone deliveries will make it possible to deliver pizzas to further away or difficult-to-reach locations. ("The Zipline drones can deliver goods to customers in a 10-mile service radius," according to the newspaper, with drones flying more than 300 feet above the ground while remaining 'nearly silent, designed to sound like rustling leaves in the wind,' according to Zipline.) Local news station KIRO notes that Zipline's current system uses larger drones and small parachutes "for Walmart and other customers around the world." And Pagliacci Pizza told them that since there's no driver, tips offered during drone delivery would go to the kitchen staff. Wednesday Zipline also announced a deal with wellness brand GNC, according to CNET, which "will begin with customers in Salt Lake City, with other cities to follow... Zipline is also announcing a partnership with Associated Couriers to begin delivering prescription medications to patients at long-term care facilities in Long Island, New York. Associated Couriers plans to expand the service across the US and then internationally. The delivery company has already completed more than 600,000 deliveries to customers since 2016 using its previous iteration of drones.... Zipline is far from being the only company experimenting with drone delivery — Walmart, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon and startups like Flyby Robotics and Manna have also run trials and performed delivery services.

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