The remotely operated Dronamics drone.
- A company that builds courier drones is set to expand its operations to South Africa.
- Dronamics announced a partnership with Aramex to expand to new regions.
- Drone logistics services are yet to start being widely used.
- For more stories, visit the Tech and Trends homepage.
Courier company Aramex is partnering with Dronamics, a cargo drone airline, to introduce a long-range same-day, remotely piloted delivery option to new regions, including South Africa.
This was announced in a post on the Dronamics website last week.
The Black Swan drone that the company has developed can take off and land in a 400-metre space, requires no pilot and can carry a 350-kilogramme load for a distance of 2 500 kilometres.
Dronamics claims this can be done 80% faster, 50% cheaper, and with 60% less emissions than alternative transport methods, such as airfreight.
The fact that the drone can land on such a short runway means that it can operate in underserved areas with a lack of airport infrastructure.
It is not clear when Aramex and Dronamics plan to begin operating in South Africa. The companies will first explore joint deployment opportunities in the United Arab Emirates before branching out to the South African and Australian market.
Global innovation director at Aramex Angad Singh said the company hopes to begin piloting flights with Dronamics in 2024.
Drone delivery yet to take off
Despite the promise of drone technology for logistics services, the technology is yet to be used on a large scale.
This is despite significant investment from tech giants such as Amazon and Google owner, Alphabet.
Amazon Prime Air only operates in two cities in the United States, but the company has announced plans to expand the offering internationally in 2024 to the United Kingdom and Italy.
“Moving forward, we’ll be integrating drones into the Amazon delivery network,” the company said in a statement in October.
A subsidiary of Alphabet called Wing is also growing its fleet of delivery drones. The company partnered with Walmart in August to use lightweight autonomous drones to make deliveries from two stores in the Dallas metro area.
Locally, a project launched by the South African National Blood Service to deliver blood to hard-to-reach areas by drone was delayed by five years.
READ MORE | Not in vein: SANBS blood delivery drones set to take off soon after five years of turbulence
A laundry list of issues, including the construction of a hospital, regulatory hurdles, and a lack of drone operators resulted in the delay.
