If you happen to fly over Atlanta any time soon, look out for some Papa John’s pizzas flying with you. Yes, you heard it right, it seems pizzas will fly on a drone in Powder Springs, Atlanta.
Famous American restaurant chain Papa John’s has started to test the supply of pizzas through a drone. Papa Johns in Powder Spring, Atlanta is delivering pizza via drone to customers.
How does drone pizza delivery work?
As you order a pizza from Papa John’s at 4400 Brownsville Rd, Powder Springs, a drone pilot will fly your pizza to your car park. An observer will be handling each drone take-off. Near your parking space, another employee of the drone service will use a mechanical device called a winch to bring the pie down from the drone, which will hover 15 metres above.
When we go through the entire process, it is understood that it takes more than 2 people to work on single drone delivery. That is more than people working on a normal delivery. This is entirely contradictory to companies’ claim that widespread implementation of drone delivery will address the issue of labour shortage.
According to the vice president of digital engineering services, Yasaswi Pulavarti, testing will help to “learn and build for the future”. She also said that this service will enable the company to get pizzas to tables in between increasing traffic and suburban sprawl.
Papa John’s is in collaboration with Drone Express, a drone delivery company based in Dayton, Ohio, for this venture.
Customers in other cities will have to wait a lot more time to get drone services in their cities. Another limitation of current testing is that only a single pizza delivery is possible. Since there is also a regulation that all flights should be in the line of sight, expecting an increase in the area of service soon is not probable.
The test has been continuing for the past few months and will continue for the next few weeks. After the testing stage, the company will analyse the results and loopholes in the system.
Regulations from the Federal Aviation Administration, regarding the distance of drone flightmare also a hurdle for companies to cross.
Papa John’s is not the first entity, to begin with, a drone delivery expedition. Amazon, UPS, Walmart and all have already begun with their drone delivery testing.
Domino’s pizza was the first entity to try drone delivery in New Zealand in 2017.
