UK’s Royal Mail to deliver post by drone on 50 new routes

The UK’s Royal Mail has announced plans to open 50 postal routes serviced by delivery drones over the next three years as part of a wider objective of deploying over 500 UAVs to carry letters and parcels to remote localities in the country.

Royal Mail said drone delivery of post will initially be introduced to the Shetland Islands, Orkney Islands, Hebrides, and the Isles of Scilly. That latter destination was selected by the 507-year-old public service last year to first trial postal flights by UAVs between Cornwall and the archipelago, located 30 miles to the south. Since then, Royal Mail has additionally operated test programs to Scotland’s Isle of Mull and Orkney Islands.

Most of those Royal Mail trials have been in partnership with drone delivery and air taxi infrastructure company Skyports, which operated the Mull flights after earlier transporting medical materials to far-flung UK destinations during spikes in the COVID-19 pandemic.

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