The Royal Mail has announced plans to open 50 postal lines serviced by drones over the next three years as part of a broader goal of deploying more than 500 drones to deliver letters and parcels to remote areas. Royal Mail said drone deliveries would initially be introduced to Shetland, Orkney, Hebrides and Scilly. Last year, the 507-year-old public service chose the last of those locations for a test flight of the first drone postal flight between Cornwall and the archipelago 30km south of it. Since then, Royal Mail has also run a test programme on the Isle of Mull and Orkney in Scotland. Most of these trials at Royal Mail were carried out in partnership with drone delivery and air taxi infrastructure company Skyports, which has been operating medical materials to remote UK destinations during the COVID-19 pandemic Mull flight. Royal Mail will begin phased postal drone deliveries on more than 50 designated routes over the next few months, pending approval from the UK Civil Aviation Authority. It will operate the flights in partnership with Windracers, a drone manufacturer and service provider that participated in early trials. The company’s 10-meter-long fixed-wing drone can carry 100 kilograms of mail over a maximum range of 70 miles. Last month, the drone flew 50 miles each way in a test on Unster Island in the Orkney Islands.
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