With Canberrans encouraged to stay home, demand for drone deliveries has surged with Wing seeing a dramatic increase in the number of customers using its drone delivery service.

Currently available in Canberra, servicing the suburbs of Crace, Franklin, Harrison and Palmerston, Wing also operates in Logan, Queensland as well as the USA and Finland. In the last two weeks across all their locations they have made more than 1,000 deliveries.

A spokesperson for Wing said their technology can provide access to critical medication, food and other necessities when limiting human-to-human contact.

“As the Canberra community confronts the current COVID-19 pandemic, we understand a delivery option that limits the need for human-to-human contact can be helpful, and we’re trying to do what we can to support the communities we serve,” the spokesperson said.

“Our Canberra customers are ordering drone-delivered items from more than 15 local businesses, including items such as hot food and coffee, fresh bread, and household essentials such as milk, eggs, toothpaste and toilet paper. We’ve recently expanded our offering to include more products designed to help families staying at home – including adding more frozen meals and hot food options, and introducing new items such as colouring pencils and markers to keep the kids entertained.”

The spokesperson said they are trying to support local businesses that aren’t able to open their doors by allowing them to deliver their products directly to customers’ homes.

“We’re currently servicing hundreds of customers in the suburbs of Crace, Franklin, Palmerston and Harrison, and are gradually on-boarding new people. Interested customers are added to our waitlist and we get in touch with them as capacity becomes available.”

Wing has also implemented a range of measures at their delivery facility for the ongoing health and safety of their staff and customers. These include increasing cleaning and sanitisation, reducing staff on site during operating hours, and enforcing social distancing for staff on site.

How does it work?

Once a customer submits an order via the Wing mobile app, a drone flies to pick up the package at the delivery facility. The drone then climbs to flying altitude and proceeds to the designated delivery destination in several minutes.

Once at the customer destination, the drone slows down, hovers, descends to a delivery height of seven metres above ground, lowers the package to the ground on a tether and automatically releases the package in the desired delivery area. The drone does not land and there is no need to unclip or assist with the delivery of the package.

Did you know?

Wing marked one year of air delivery on Thursday 9 April. In the past 12 months, customers in Canberra have:

• Ordered 2,000 coffees – flat white was the most popular.
• Flown 20,700km from drone delivery flights, the equivalent of about 36 return road trips from Canberra to Sydney.