Alphabet partners with Walgreens for drone deliveries

Alphabet’s drone division, Wing, has partnered with US pharmacy Walgreens to make drone deliveries in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.

The operation will initially make deliveries from just one Walgreens outlet to the city of Frisco and the town of Little Elm.

The Google parent company said this marks the first-time drone deliveries have been implemented in a major metropolitan area of the US.

Walgreens is second-largest pharmacy chain in the US and has 9,277 locations across the country.

Wing said it plans to eventually expand its service to all the US and eventually internationally.

Wing’s service has already had a successful rollout in the town of Logan, Australia, where the company said it has made over 50,000 deliveries since 2019.

Wing's drones were able to rise to an altitude of 150 feet and reach a speed of 65 miles during their trial period according to the firm, before then descending to an altitude of around 23 feet to drop goods at their delivery location.

UK-based drone projects have recently experienced issues during their rollouts; Amazon laid off or reassigned over 100 employees at its Prime Air team in August, according to sources reported by Wired.

The Cambridge-based project, launched in 2016, was aimed at testing sub-30 min drone deliveries

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