Here’s how Wing Aviation kept up with toilet paper demand during COVID

In a recent interview with Wing Aviation‘s head of Australian operations, Terrance Bouldin-Johnson explained how the company’s drones kept up with toilet paper demand during the pandemic lockdown period in Brisbane, Australia.

In a recent interview with the Brisbane Times, Wing’s head of Australian operations, Terrance Bouldin-Johnson shared how the company kept busy during the lockdown period and was able to keep up with the demand for a household necessity, toilet paper.

“We were able to supply people in a slightly different way than the supermarkets because people order from us one roll at a time. So if someone wants to hoard it would take them a while, and we’d notice it pretty quickly.”

During the lockdown period, Wing saw an increase of five times in May compared to the previous month. During this period, the company also gained hundreds of new users, providing more business to Wing, and more importantly, to the local businesses using the drone delivery network.

For now, only nine businesses are delivering with Wing, including a coffee shop, grocery store, hardware store, sushi restaurant, and a golf store. The benefit of having a wide range of businesses linked to the delivery service means that majority of the goods needed for day-to-day life can be delivered by drones. You can get groceries, and the all-important toilet paper from the grocery store, while still being able to ‘eat out’ while stuck in lockdown.

Perfect for drones

As COVID caused much of Australia and the world to force people to stay in their homes, Wing was able to use this to its advantage and increase orders and its user base. Drone usage of the last few months has dramatically increased due to the need for deliveries of food along with medical supplies between hospitals and to deliver medicine to people that can’t leave the house.

“The way that Australia tightened things down and the way that Australians took COVID very seriously, we saw existing users increase their use and a lot of first-time users as well.”

Photo: Wing Aviation