Standard three- to five-day deliveries will soon be a thing of the past — at least for select Walgreens located in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro.
On Thursday, Wing, an Alphabet Inc. subsidiary, announced a partnership with pharmacy chain Walgreens to bring drone deliveries to part of Frisco and Little Elm. No date was provided as to when automated deliveries might be available, however, the company will conduct test flights in the coming weeks and listen to community feedback.
Wing’s venture into the DFW metro represents the company’s first attempt at providing automated delivery services in a densely populated metro. Previously, the Palo-Alto-based company offered drone deliveries in Christiansburg, Virginia, a town with a population size of just over 20,000 people. There, deliveries worked through the Wing mobile app and allowed Christiansburg residents to purchase select items from local businesses and have them delivered via drones. In Logan City, Australia, where Wing has been operating since 2019, the company said it completed over 10,000 coffee drone deliveries in one year.
The partnership with the pharmacy chain will begin at one DFW Walgreens store in its parking lot. Wing will be in charge of manning drones and getting them to the delivery location while Walgreens staff is responsible for processing orders and loading them onto the drones.
Initially, only over-the-counter medicines and convenience goods are items available for drone delivery. No details were provided as to whether drone deliveries in DFW would only be available through the Wing app or if the option would also be available through the Walgreens website and app.
In addition to the Walgreens store, Wing has partnered with Hillwood, a local real estate developer, to run a separate drone delivery facility in Frisco.
“We look forward to working with Hillwood as we deploy a facility at Frisco Station that has all the usual delivery capabilities, but will be dedicated to exploring new use cases, community demonstrations, school field trips and public tours,” according to a Wing blog post.
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