Swoop Aero to launch health care drone deliveries in New Zealand

Australian drone delivery and logistics company Swoop Aero is preparing to initiate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) services for New Zealand’s health care system, initially operating flights of lab samples between the South Island west coast towns of Westport and Greymouth.

Swoop Aero announced its health care delivery launch after the green light it said it received in late December to conduct BVLOS drone flights from New Zealand’s regulator. Those missions transporting pathology samples and blood products between labs and care centers in the neighboring country is in many ways an extension of the work Melbourne-based Swoop Aero is already doing in Australia’s Queensland.

Read: Swoop Aero to create ‘world’s largest’ drone delivery network in Queensland 

In December, the company said it had begun building what it called “the world’s first, and largest, fully integrated drone logistics network” of both medicines and commercial…