Business
The US Postal Service has narrowed down the companies bidding to build the next generation of its delivery vehicles - and one of them is offering up an all-electric truck that doubles as a drone launcher. The agency released a list of pre-qualified sources for the contract April 14,
Testing
Swiss Post, the neutral nation's postal service, has confirmed it is testing delivery-by-drone. Staff at the outfit have confirmed a report in local media detailing collaboration with Matternet and Swiss WorldCargo, the freight division of Swiss International Air Lines. Tests of drone-delivered mail are expected
Commercial
In the latest sign of the importance of its drone program, Amazon.com Inc. has hired the former number-two executive at the Air Line Pilots Association to help with the project. Sean Cassidy, an Alaska Air Group Inc. pilot and former member of a Transportation Security Administration aviation-security
Commercial
FPS, a national parts distribution business owned by Lookers, has made UK history by delivering a car part using a drone. The drone delivered a Gates belt tensioner from the FPS distribution centre in Sheffield to motor factor Brakeline, a member of Groupauto, a few miles away, making it the
Testing
China's largest mail company is set to deliver more than 1,000 packages a day by drone. S.F. Express has revealed it already has a fleet of aircraft flying 500 parcels a day to remote areas, and it is now looking to double the capacity. The all-
Testing
A quadcopter built by a Nagoya-based company has completed a trial run to see if unmanned aircraft can be used to transport goods from Kagawa Prefecture to an island in the Seto Inland Sea. “In the long run, we would like to use drones to transport emergency medical supplies
Testing
Alibaba, the Chinese online marketplace, is conducting a three-day test to deliver packages using quadcopters within an hour. The initial scope of Alibaba’s experiment is small. The company’s online Taobao bazaar is inviting 450 shoppers in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou to try parcel deliveries by drones. They
Testing
GeoPost, the express delivery arm of French mail service La Poste, has now released a video of drone delivery testing at the Centre d'Etudes et d'Essais pour Modèles Autonomes (CEEMA) in September. As part of its ongoing GeoDrone project, GeoPost partnered with Atechsys to develop an
Business
Big Four firm Deloitte has predicted that more than a million commercial drones will take to the skies in 2015 as technological advances allow for further developments. Deloitte explained that with 700,000 commercial drones currently in use and more than 300,000 ordered globally for 2015, this year will
Testing