Flipkart Health, the healthcare division of e-commerce giant Flipkart, 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 taken by the drones in this pilot had an aerial distance of 104 kilometres, which according to Ankit Kumar, CEO of Skye Air, is the world’s longest BVLoS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight > 100 kilometres) delivery route with a remote landing covered by a drone. The road distance between the Flipkart hub in Baruipur and the Healthbuddy Matangini (pharmacy) in Medinipur is 185 kilometres and takes approximately 5 hours. Flipkart was able to cover this distance in one hour thanks to drone delivery. Kumar noted that the drone delivery would have reduced Flipkart Health’s logistics costs by 20-30%.
