DoorDash Launches DoorDash Air In-House Drone Delivery Program
The news comes after DoorDash Labs earned FAA Part 135 air carrier certification.
(San Francisco, California) DoorDash (NASDAQ: DASH) announced today (Jul. 29) that it has launched DoorDash Air, the company’s in-house drone delivery program, after DoorDash Labs earned the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Part 135 air carrier certification.
Image of the wing of a DoorDash drone courtesy of DoorDash.
Part 135 certification enables DoorDash to operate as an air carrier, and to offer what the company describes as “an even more deeply integrated drone delivery experience.”
With 135 certification complete, DoorDash Labs becomes the eighth drone operator ever to have earned a Part 135 certificate, according to today’s press release from DoorDash.
DoorDash Labs is DoorDash’s in-house robotics and autonomy team, which is designing an aircraft purpose-built for gaps the company has identified in local commerce, and which complements the short- and long-range designs being scaled by DoorDash partners.
Per DoorDash, drones are important to the company’s mission given that drones can, in some cases, enable quicker deliveries than off-road vehicles, in addition to solving a number of unique challenges for local commerce.
“Drone delivery means consumers can have what they need when they need it most, whether that’s essentials like cold medicine or time-sensitive items like a coffee or hot meal to a nurse finishing a 12-hour shift,” reads today’s press release.
“We want drone delivery to work for any merchant, anywhere,” said Harrison Shih, Head of DoorDash Air. “We’re building the full stack to make that possible from the ground infrastructure to the drone itself, and the handoff systems that make it work together seamlessly. Advances in hardware, compute, and AI are creating extraordinary new capabilities for local commerce, and becoming a certified air carrier accelerates everything we’re building.”
Based on DoorDash’s estimates, drones in 2025 delivered in an average of 25 minutes, and some participating locations in DoorDash’s drone partner pilots saw DoorDash order volume grow by roughly 30%, with the lift sustained across the nine weeks following the pilot launch.
