FLYING Magazine
As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas—including drone delivery services.
By the end of 2027, the buzzing uncrewed aircraft (UA) could deliver everything from hot meals and cold drinks to pharmaceuticals for residents statewide, according to partners Zipline and Wonder. The drone delivery provider and food technology platform on Tuesday revealed plans to offer on-demand service in minutes out of Wonder locations across Texas, beginning with Dallas-Fort Worth in January.
Wonder aims to add the service to the “majority” of its locations before the end of next year. The company is building the infrastructure for a planned expansion into Texas centered around Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.
“Drone delivery plays a key role in Wonder’s strategy to make great food more accessible by increasing speed and reaching areas that may be underserved by traditional delivery models,” according to a news release shared by the company.
In March, Wonder subsidiary Grubhub launched a three-month drone delivery trial program in New Jersey in partnership with a Zipline competitor, Dexa.
Drones in the Lone Star State
Zipline is the drone delivery industry’s most established player, having completed 2.5 million deliveries and flown 135 million miles worldwide since launching in 2016.
The company is active in Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, with plans to expand to Phoenix and at least three other states by year’s end. Texans can use the service to order more than 100,000 different items.
Zipline’s Platform 1 (P1) delivery system can easily fly 100 miles. But for services like the one with Wonder, it uses the smaller Platform 2 (P2), which is tailored for deliveries to the customer’s front yard or public locations such as a park. In 2022, it became the first drone operator to obtain FAA Part 135 authorization.
P2 drones, or Zips, cruise at about 70 mph and can carry up to 8 pounds of cargo. Upon arriving at the delivery location, the drones unfurl a tether to lower orders—stored within a smaller “droid”—to the ground from as high as 300 feet. They are designed for hub-and-spoke or dock-to-dock operations.
Zipline flights, pickups, and deliveries are automated to make adding the service as frictionless as possible for businesses. Wonder employees will load orders into the company’s Dropbox, entering a code on a keypad to unlock a secure drawer and leaving them for the drone to handle the rest. The Dropbox can be installed in different locations inside and outside of a building, with no construction or special packaging required.
Similar innovations, such as competitor Wing’s Autoloader system, have allowed hundreds of businesses to try out on-demand aerial delivery.
More to Come?
Dallas-Fort Worth is the epicenter of the burgeoning industry, with Flytrex, partners Wing and Walmart, and other operators flying there daily. Using uncrewed traffic management (UTM) technology under an FAA authorization, these providers are coordinating and deconflicting thousands of flights per month in shared airspace.
The regulator is watching these activities closely as it charts a path to expanded drone delivery operations, which may not be far away.
Zipline’s P2 Zips are capable of 24-mile one-way trips or flying within a 10-mile service radius. That is enabled by the beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) exemption the company secured in 2023. Essentially, Zipline showed the FAA that its patented detect and avoid system—which monitors the airspace for hazards up to 2 miles away in all directions, using ADS-B transponders and micrphones—could adequately fill in for human observers.
Still, Zipline and other providers want to fly farther. The FAA could enable that with Part 108, its proposal to standardize BVLOS regulations.
Zipline, Wing, Flytrex, and others are already flying BVLOS in Texas. But with Part 108, they could do the same in other locations without having to secure additional exemptions. In other words, Texas may not be the nation’s drone delivery capital forever.
However, pilots and the drone industry largely disagree on whether the FAA’s proposal is acceptable. Many in the former group feel the uncrewed aircraft are not yet ready for expanded operations, particularly near airports.
This week, a JetBlue Airways pilot reported striking a drone while descending to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport (KJFK) in New York, though officials’ initial investigation found no damage to the aircraft or drone activity in the area.