While the idea of a pizza delivery drone has been talked about for quite some time, Domino’s Pizza has finally made the leap. The chain announced that it made its first commercial delivery in New Zealand on Wednesday, a venture that had the approval of the country’s civil aviation authority.
The global pizza chain partnered with Flirtey, a drone delivery startup (and “premier independent drone delivery service,” according to the website) to fly food to customers in Whangaparaoa, a suburb 15 miles north of Auckland.
(In case you were wondering: the order was for a peri-peri chicken pizza and a chicken/cranberry pizza. Appetizing, no?)
“We will be conducting more delivery flights to customers from the Whangaparaoa store this week and will use the information we gather to expand drone flights to a larger DRU Drone by Flirtey delivery area next year,” said Don Meij, Domino’s Group CEO.
To assuage fears that drone delivery will take jobs away from living, breathing, pizza-loving humans, Domino’s says its delivery fleet will actually create jobs. “As we expand, we will look to hire additional team members whose roles will be focused on drone order loading and fleet management,” Meij said.
In addition to New Zealand, Domino’s is also looking to pursue drone delivery in Australia and Japan, as well as in four European markets: Belgium, France, The Netherlands, and Germany.
Filed Under: M2M (machine to machine)