Drone Delivery

Dromamics, the world’s first drone delivery airline is setting an additional air transport precedent by partnering with Qatar Airways Cargo, forging the first global network linking the longer-haul routes of a major carrier with the smaller, more local destinations that the middle-mile UAV startup plans to serve.

He isn’t old enough to obtain a driver’s license, but can legally pilot a drone – which he did (after getting a ride to takeoff destinations) to most illegally fly repeated delivery missions of drugs and other banned items into prisons in southwest France.

Innovative UK drone startup Inteliports says it successfully completed a trial run of its GO UAV delivery concept, which is designed to group all functions of the takeoff, landing, flight navigation, and payload handling process into compact, automated modules that fit neatly into urban landscapes.

Leading global instant logistics and drone delivery specialist Zipline revealed it has set another precedent by conducting its the first beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flight in the US without any ground observers.

Toronto-based aerial services company Drone Delivery Canada announced that it completed a medical transport trial in Michigan, where its UAVs were tested for use as reinforcements to habitual ground options rather than as immediate replacements.

European middle-mile drone delivery specialist Dronamics has reinforced its strategic and financial partnership with the United Arab Emirates’s (UAE) Strategic Development Fund with a new joint venture agreement to enable large-scale production of the startup’s Black Swan transport aircraft.

Scotland’s bid to launch what it says will be the world’s first nation-wide medical drone delivery network has taken another step forward with the completion of its first live trial flight near Glasgow.

Matternet, the first non-military drone maker to achieve standard Type Certification and Production Certification by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has announced a significant development. The company has built a new, more efficient variant of its M2 delivery drone and it has managed to get an FAA Type Certificate approval for that as well.

Europe’s largest drone delivery operator, Manna Drone Delivery, says it has officially commenced US operations by delivering Halloween candy to families in the Dallas/Fort Worth area by drone.

Aerial food delivery specialist Flytrex has announced authorization from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) permitting it to perform beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone flights in markets across the US, an exemption to operate above homes and people without ground observers it plans to use in accelerated scaling of its activities.

Leading instant logistics and UAV transport specialist Zipline has announced a new partnership with healthcare giant Cleveland Clinic involving an evolving operation that will begin with drone delivery of medication directly to patients’ homes.

France’s budding UAV services startup Delivrone has teamed up with one of Europe’s most ambitious and fast-moving drone delivery companies, RigiTech, to initiate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) missions between French hospitals – including rare nighttime flights.

Amazon says it is expanding its Prime Air drone delivery system to international locations, and adding a third city in the United States by the end of next year.

Authorities in the UK are seeking to battle what they decry as increasing drone deliveries of contraband to prisons in a manner that hasn’t been terribly effective in other countries before: passing new legislation to broaden bans on what’s already illegal activity, rather than investing in the specialized detection and mitigation tech required to detect and neutralize invasive UAVs en route to jails.

Amazon is now offering customers the option to get medicines delivered to their homes via drone within 60 minutes of their order with Amazon Pharmacy, the retail giant’s online prescription drug store. Here’s everything you need to know…

Global UAV company Skyports Drone Services is preparing to expand both its geographical footprint and the specialized aerial fleet it uses during trials of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) deliveries across the Yeosu City area of South Korea, where it will deploy Swiss startup RigiTech craft for the first time.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority has greenlit six trial projects that would help to make beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone flights and medical drone delivery an everyday reality in the country.

DroneUp has launched the first of its dedicated drone deliveries of medicine to patients’ homes in eastern Virginia – the first in a potentially broad range of aerial activities organized by a collective of businesses, universities, and non-profit associations to improve healthcare in the region.

In an application that fails to qualify – by several time zones – for the vaunted “drones for good” category, a startup in Monaco has celebrated its maiden mission of delivering a luxury payload, including Champagne worth several hundred dollars, to an offshore luxury super yacht.

Deliveries of banned materials to prison inmates by drone have gotten more ambitious and audacious around the world as their frequency multiplied, but the aerial smuggling ring police in western France broke up stands out for its quasi-startup organization and efficiency.

Innovative Swiss UAV-glider company Jedsy is partnering with German medical group Asklepios Kliniken in a project to create a broad network of drone delivery routes between hospitals and labs that analyze patient blood, tissue, and other samples.