Delivery Drone
Over the past several years, drone delivery has become more than just an experiment for several towns across the US. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Yariv Bash, CEO and co-founder of Flytrex, the ultrafast drone delivery company for food and retail.
Flytrex is a market-leading drone delivery service that partners with retailers and restaurants to offer fast, safe, and cost-effective airborne deliveries directly to customers' front and backyards. Flytrex operates the largest backyard drone delivery service in the US, with delivery stations in North Carolina and Texas operating daily, and signed agreements with several of the world's largest retail and restaurant chains.
Gary Drenik: Rapid delivery has exploded in popularity in recent years, especially due to the pandemic. How is the market expected to change in the next few years? Decades?
Yariv Bash: It’s no secret that consumers across the US expect instant gratification and convenience at a reasonable price, and in the current economic climate — as the cost of driving, shopping, and living increase — affordable delivery is more important than ever.
The rapid delivery boom is also heavily influenced by the change in consumers’ shopping preferences. As a result of price increases, 35.3% of consumers 18 years and older report that they’re making fewer shopping trips, as reported in a recent survey by Prosper Insights & Analytics. But instead of going to the store to do longer stock-up trips, consumers are instead cutting back on the amount of products they purchase per trip. This opens up the door for autonomous solutions, which offer end-to-end, affordable, efficient delivery for those smaller delivery orders, so businesses can satisfy customers' need for convenience, while increasing efficiency, and in turn bottom lines.
Prosper - Price Increases Leads To Taking Fewer Shopping Trips
This likely won’t change any time soon: global autonomous last-mile delivery is on its way to becoming a nearly $85 billion industry by 2030, an almost eightfold increase from 2021.
Drenik: What are the main benefits — to both brands and customers – of drone delivery over traditional delivery methods?
Bash: Restaurants that incorporate automated, end-to-end drone delivery can slash the typical cost of delivery by as much as 40%. A single drone operator can monitor dozens of delivery orders at once, letting businesses satisfy customers’ demand for instant gratification while paying less for transportation costs. A Flytrex drone operator can complete more than 20 deliveries per hour, leading to faster service at a more affordable price, increasing efficiency and in turn increasing business.
In addition to its economic benefits, drone delivery is also better for the environment and safer. The average passenger vehicle – the most common delivery vehicle – emits 4.6 metric tons of greenhouse gases per year. Carbon dioxide emissions from delivery traffic are expected to increase by 36% in the next year alone. Flytrex drones are 100% electric and automated, meaning less pollution as well as less congestion and fewer accidents on the roads.
On a micro level, Flytrex’s local presence in communities has helped strengthen the relationships between businesses and consumers, as well as create new jobs for local residents. Our systems don’t simply operate in these neighborhoods, but rather engage with and serve the communities.
Drenik: Do you foresee drone delivery eclipsing traditional methods?
Bash: The biggest gap in rapid delivery until now has been in the suburbs, and is the result of inefficient, economically impractical, and unsustainable methods of delivery. In these areas, traditional delivery couriers are only able to make around two deliveries per hour, so delivery takes longer and costs more. According to a recent survey by Prosper Insights & Analytics, among suburban and rural residents, an average of 30% use home delivery services for groceries, compared to 43% of urban residents utilizing the same type of services.
Prosper - Use Home Delivery Services For Groceries
Flytrex is closing this delivery gap by providing short-range, high-bandwidth, and ultra-affordable last-mile fulfillment — translating to speedier and cheaper deliveries for suburban residents.
Of course, drone delivery is not one-size-fits-all, so while drones are taking off in the suburbs, they are currently less suited to urban areas. The infrastructure of urban communities – high-rise buildings, electric wiring, and lack of open property space for landings or drops – does not allow for this type of solution.
Drone delivery is becoming a reality for the over 80 million households in suburban America, but it will take time until it is available in urban areas.
Drenik: How have customers responded to your service? Has it been a challenge to get consumer buy-in?
Bash: Registering for Flytrex’s service is like signing up for any other app-based delivery service (Doordash, UberEats etc.), so the onboarding process for customers is very straightforward. In every Flytrex delivery area, there are the early adopters who want to test out the new technology. And, when push comes to shove, seeing is believing when people see their neighbors or friends receive a drone delivery, it’s a great selling point. Once people start using our service, they realize that the novelty of it is just the tip of the iceberg.
On average, within six months of launching in a region, 25%-30% of households in that area register to use Flytrex’s service. In some areas, more that 60% of households have registered - and this number continues to grow. While our users may sign up for the service because it's ‘cool,’ they keep using it because it’s an affordable and high-quality service: in 2022, our average delivery time was 3:32 minutes, our 12-month retention rate was 44% and the average service rating was 4.72/5 across the 21,000 plus orders we completed.
Drenik: What kind of regulatory red tape must one get through in order to get these unmanned vehicles air-borne?
Bash: Regulation has been a longstanding challenge for the drone delivery industry. Because drones are held to the same regulatory standards as commercial aircraft, drone delivery services are expected to meet equally stringent safety standards. For years, Flytrex has been working with regulators like the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) and the North Carolina Department of Transportation, participating in initiatives such as the UAS Integration Pilot Program and BEYOND to help tackle the remaining challenges of UAS integration. Our participation in these initiatives and the fact that we’ve withstood this long and rigorous process has helped Flytrex become one of the FAA’s trusted drone delivery companies.
Recently, after years of rigorous training and testing, our longtime partner Causey Aviation Unmanned was granted Standard Part 135 Air Carrier Certification from the FAA. Attaining this certification is the key enabler for true long-range on-demand commercial drone deliveries in the United States. It also provides several key benefits, including greater operational flexibility such as the ability to fly over people and beyond the pilot’s visual line of sight (BVLOS), which until now could only be achieved through specific waivers. To date, Part 135 for drones has only been attained by a prestigious list of five companies, including Amazon Prime Air and UPS.
Drenik: Thanks, Yariv, for sharing your insights on automated drone delivery. This has shown that drone delivery is not just a futuristic idea, but a viable solution to provide consumers with better, safer, more affordable delivery.
