Uber is officially going airborne. The company just announced its first-ever investment in drone delivery, teaming up with Israeli startup Flytrex to make food orders literally drop out of the sky. Pilot programs are expected to kick off in select US markets before the end of 2025.
Flytrex isn’t new to this game. The company has already completed more than 200,000 deliveries to suburban households in the US, and it’s one of only four providers cleared by the FAA to fly drones Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS). Basically, they don’t have to keep the aircraft in view the entire time. That green light from regulators makes Flytrex a serious player, and now, Uber is betting on them.
Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s president of autonomous mobility and delivery, frames the move as the next big leap for the company’s logistics empire. “With Flytrex, we’re entering the next chapter, bringing the speed and sustainability of drone delivery to the Uber Eats platform, at scale, for the first time,” he says.
Flytrex’s executive chairman, Noam Bardin, is even more blunt: drones are “the future of food delivery — fast, affordable, and hands-free.”
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For Uber Eats customers, that future could mean burritos and bubble tea arriving in minutes, not the half hour it sometimes takes a car or bike courier to wade through traffic. Uber has already dabbled with sidewalk robots, and this partnership signals a push to build a flexible delivery network of cars, bikes, robots, and now flying couriers.
Why should you care? Beyond the cool factor of watching a drone hover over your yard with takeout, this tech could actually cut congestion, lower delivery fees, and reduce emissions. Fewer cars zig-zagging around neighborhoods means a smoother, greener system.
The exact US cities where Uber and Flytrex will test this service haven’t been named yet, but if things go according to plan, your next late-night Uber Eats order might not come from a driver’s trunk — it could descend straight from the sky.
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