|
 The service, which will debut in one or two U.S. cities in the
coming weeks, shows how the parcel delivery company plans to expand
its upstart drone business beyond hospital campuses.
"Flight Forward will work with new customers in other industries to
design additional solutions for a wide array of last-mile and urgent
delivery challenges," UPS Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer
Scott Price said.
The Atlanta-based company this month won the U.S. government's first
approval to operate a drone airline, leapfrogging rivals like
Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> and Alphabet Inc's <GOOGL.O> Wing and
clearing the way for the expansion of Flight Forward.
UPS, which owns 251 jet aircraft and charters nearly 300 more, is
building its Flight Forward business at a time when U.S. drone
delivery is in its infancy. Regulations for operating those unmanned
vehicles in U.S. airspace are not expected until 2021.
On Monday, Flight Forward and partner Matternet also announced a
deal to deliver biological samples and other cargo on University of
Utah Health hospital campuses. That will be similar to the service
at North Carolina's WakeMed Hospital, where Flight Forward operates
about 10 flights per day, said Bala Ganesh, vice president of the
advanced technology group at UPS.
[to top of second column] |
Flight Forward has also signed a hospital campus deal with
healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente, UPS said.
In addition, the company said pharmaceutical distributor
AmerisourceBergen Corp <ABC.N> will use Flight Forward drones to
move pharmaceuticals, supplies and records to select U.S. medical
campuses it serves.
UPS rival FedEx Corp <FDX.N> last week delivered a residential
package to a home in Christiansburg, Virginia, as part of a trial
service with Alphabet's Wing Aviation.
Dan Gagnon, vice president of global healthcare strategy at UPS,
said Flight Forward "is not a one and done business model. We're
looking for scale and repetition."
(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Editing by David
Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)
[© 2019 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2019 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
 |
