Open Post: Hosted By The Pizza Hut Delivery Drones
The worst part about ordering pizza is the shame. The person who delivers the pizza comes to your door, sees you in your PJs at 3 PM, notes that you’re the only human being in your studio apartment, sees the cat, smells the weed, and hands over your large pepperoni with a side of garlic bread and three dipping sauces with judgment in his eyes. So when I read that Pizza Hut was testing drone delivery in Israel, I excitedly Googled “how to move to Israel during a pandemic.”
Alas, I was misled. Yes, the delicious pizza will be delivered by drones, but only for part of the trip. The droned pies will be dropped into government-approved landing zones (like parking lots), then drivers will deliver them like usual for the final leg of the journey. Sigh.
The drone man explained, via the Wall Street Journal:
“Drone delivery is a sexy thing to talk about, but it’s not realistic to think we’re going to see drones flying all over the sky dropping pizzas into everyone’s backyards anytime soon,” said Ido Levanon, the managing director of Dragontail Systems Ltd., the technology firm coordinating Pizza Hut’s drone trial.
Ido added that delivery to the customers’ doors would require a lot more drones and battery charging.
Because businesses are always trying to find a way to pay humans less, pizza chains and tech startups have spent years developing drone delivery. Drones can fly above traffic, widen their delivery area, and, of course, you don’t have to pay them minimum wage. Lovely.
For now, Pizza Hut Israel is only testing drone delivery with one restaurant and a 50 square mile “air bubble” in the north part of the country. They’ll run tests until June, and then try it for real. This means any hungry Israelis equipped with good aim and a nice, hard-throwing rock can try to catch themselves some free sky dinner. Yeeeehaw!
Pic: YouTube