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E-commerce major Flipkart’s healthcare vertical, Flipkart Health has completed a 15-day drone delivery pilot in collaboration with Skye Air Mobility to transport 3 kgs (20-30 packages) of medicines per flight to Flipkart’s partner pharmacies in Kolkata.
One of the routes followed by the drones in this pilot had an aerial distance of 104 kms, which CEO of Skye Air, Ankit Kumar told Businessline, is the world’s longest ever BVLoS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight > 100kms) delivery route with a remote landing covered by a drone.
This route from the Flipkart hub in Baruipur to the Healthbuddy Matangini (pharmacy) in Medinipur is 185 kms by road and takes about 5 hours. With the help of drone delivery, Flipkart was able to cover this distance in 1 hour. Kumar noted that the drone delivery would have also reduced the logistic cost of Flipkart Health by around 20–30 per cent.
In the past 15 days, 200 drone flights have been done from four Flipkart hubs setup by Skye Air Mobility. Post the completion of the trial, the companies will consolidate the results and look at a commercial opportunity which is to implement these drone deliveries for a longer period of time.
“The whole objective of this was to look at what we can do in the real world and the impact that we can create. We have already done this to a larger extent. Now we will be working with Flipkart to define geographies where we can deploy this on a regular basis,” Kumar added.
Pranav Saxena, Chief Technology and Product Officer, Flipkart Health+, said, “At Flipkart, we are working on cutting-edge technologies to enhance the supply chain process, reduce the time taken to deliver, and widen the reach in the remotest parts of India. Drones can be effective in indoor and outdoor environments, and we are building the framework to unlock their potential. With the successful delivery of pre-packaged prescribed medicines for customers at the Healthbuddy Matangini in the state’s Medinipur district, we are now confident of delivering pre-prescribed medicines and medical equipment in remote areas of the country.”
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