Alphabet’s Wing kicks off drone delivery service in Dallas on April 7th

On April 7th, Wing will launch its first commercial service in the US. Tens of thousands of homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area will be able to purchase the company's drones.

Customers can order items from a limited number of stores that are partnering with Wing. Wing's operational model involves parking small shipping containers next to participating stores to act as tiny hangers from which Wing's drones will be deployed. After receiving orders online, employees at each partnering store take the items outside and load them into a cardboard package. Wing's operations team pilots the drones to the customer's homes.

The idea of drones delivering goods around cities was supposed to change the way goods are moved. The technology has focused on small-scale experiments, delivering vaccines and blood to remote locations. In the US, drone delivery has been limited to smaller towns, where land usage is less crowded and complex. Amazon's program in the UK shed dozens of employees, and some companies have faltered in their progress.

Wing has been able to rack up a series of minor successes, recently completing its 200,000th delivery while operating in three countries. More than 50,000 deliveries have been carried out in the suburb of Logan in Australia.

Wing has been testing its service in the Dallas suburbs since last year, and the decision to launch a commercial service is a sign of the company's growing confidence in the technology.

Wing is similar to sister company Waymo in that it is focused on small improvements before pulling the lever. The company has set up a facility at a mixed-use development north of Dallas. Wing says that the facility has delivery capabilities and will initially be dedicated to exploring new use cases, community demonstrations, and public tours.

Wing's drones can operate as both fixed-wing aircraft and hovering copters. Unlike Amazon's delivery drones, the aircraft don't need to land. Wing's craft flies to their location, descends to a height of seven meters, and then lowers their packages on a tether, automatically releasing them onto the ground.