Uber is taking another crack at aerial delivery. The company will pilot Uber Eats orders by drone in limited U.S. markets through a new partnership with Israeli drone startup Flytrex, and is taking a small strategic investment from the company. The investment is not material, according to reporting by Bloomberg News, but the move indicates a refreshed appetite for automation in Uber’s delivery business.
Why Uber is getting back into the skies again
Uber has been warming up to technologies that it had pursued in-house but spun out or sidelined. Now, it works with self-driving car developers like Waymo to provide rides in driverless taxis in a handful of cities and has an enduring commercial partnership with Joby Aviation to make future electric air taxis available through the Uber app. Drones are a nearer-term step along that same arc: faster service, lower delivery costs and less reliance on human couriers when demand peaks.
The company once tested food delivery drones, then halted the effort as regulatory headwinds and costs, and focus, changed. Joby Aviation completed the purchase of its airplane business Elevate (including some vehicles) from what is now EmbraerX, closing one chapter; Flytrex opens another, with off-the-shelf aircraft and proven operations — and potentially a much narrower deployment model that gives primacy to the regulatory environment.
What the pilot entails for Uber and Flytrex tests
Uber’s trial will (for now) feature short-range, low-altitude hops from participating restaurants (or staging sites) to nearby homes. Flytrex’s drones tend to transport small enough orders, say a couple of pounds of food, only a handful of miles at most, reducing risk and keeping operations well within geofenced corridors. Rather than landing, many Flytrex deliveries rely on a tether to lower packages into backyards or designated drop zones, limiting noise and rotor wash near people.
Flytrex is already working with several partners, and has made over 200,000 deliveries in the United States to date. That existing footprint counts: it comes with established procedures, trained crew members and a safety case — hammered out in the course of repetitive, suburban operations — exactly where drone delivery has developed fastest.
The regulatory backdrop for drone delivery in U.S.
In the U.S., that also means regulation by the Federal Aviation Administration under Part 107, for little drones plus exemptions and waivers for people flying riskier missions such as beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). A handful of operators, including Zipline, Wing and UPS Flight Forward, have received exemptions and air carrier certifications that allow them to conduct scaled commercial operations in designated areas. The FAA has been moving gradually toward wide-ranging BVLOS regulations, and in the meantime it’s granting more specific permissions — often connected to detect-and-avoid systems, standardized operating procedures and community engagement plans.
For Uber and Flytrex, the near-term opportunity probably lies in suburban airspace where routes are more predictable, obstacles fewer and local authorities more agreeable. Remote ID requirements, weather minimums and noise sensitivities all still apply there, but the policy atmosphere is far more workable than when Uber was first gearing up exploration in drones.
Competition and partners to watch in drone delivery
The field is maturing quickly. Zipline has made hundreds of thousands of global drops, and it is ramping up use of fixed-wing drones with precise, silent tether deliveries for health care and retail. Alphabet’s Wing has launched with big-box retailers and couriers in the U.S. and abroad, concentrating on high-frequency delivery from parking-lot “nests.” Flytrex, Uber’s new partner, specializes in master-planned suburbs and partners with a range of restaurants and retail companies — including DoorDash, now an Uber investor.
That cross-pollination underlines a strategic fact: drones are a network layer. Platforms like Uber, DoorDash and Walmart don’t have to be aircraft owners to capture the speed- and cost-saving benefits; what they need is trusted capacity, tight integrations with providers and service level guarantees. Uber’s advantage is demand density in its app, routing expertise and its ability to flex between human couriers, scooters, robots and drones depending on what time of day, how far away and the weather.
Economics and the use case fit for drone delivery
Last-mile logistics can make up more than half of overall shipping costs, and the food delivery margins are notoriously slim. Drones strike at both of these problems when the conditions are right — within a limited distance, carrying modest payloads and in uncongested airspace but with high traffic density. Pilots everywhere are constantly boasting of sub-15-minute descent times, with energy costs in the cents — not dollars.
Still, air delivery isn’t a one-size-fits-all substitute. But weather downtime, airspace coordination and residential noise concerns constrain where drones make sense. Expect Uber to send the drones in neighborhoods where a single drone can hit lots of households from a small launch pad, leveling out demand spikes and shrinking ETAs for high-value items like cooked meals, convenience store runs and tiny pharmacy orders.
What success would look like for Uber’s drone trials
Uber does not have to rely on drones to bring the majority of orders in order to claim a victory. Reliability, customer satisfaction, operating cost per trip and how easily drones fit into the app’s current delivery options will determine who does well in the trial. Look for metrics regarding on-time rates, weather resilience and repeat usage, as well as community feedback on noise and privacy.
But if the economics hold and regulators keep opening the lane, drones could emerge as a routine delivery option in certain ZIP codes — quietly supplementing couriers, not replacing them. Uber’s new bet with Flytrex indicates the company senses that future coming into focus.