When Amazon first floated the idea of using drones to make quicker deliveries, few took it seriously. Some even looked on it as a mere PR stunt. But last week DHL - one of our preferred suppliers - proved the concept wasn’t in fact so far fetched, when it became the first carrier to launch a commercial drone delivery service.
The Guardian reported DHL used ‘an autonomous quadcopter’ to deliver parcels to the sandbar island of Juist, 12km into the North Sea from Germany.
DHL’s drone won’t deliver just anything, though. Its primary function will be for medication and ‘urgently needed’ goods. And unlike the service proposed by Amazon, which would deliver straight to the customer’s door, DHL’s offering is a dedicated landing site, where goods will be loaded and transported to their end location by a DHL courier.
What it tells us, however, is that drone delivery - which some believed was still a long way off - is actually available now and could become an interesting part of the world of logistics.
At CCL we’re known for embracing new technology and should they take off (excuse the pun), we’ll be there helping our customers take advantage - it might be sooner than you think.