7-Eleven Breaks New Ground with Drone Deliveries

The Irving-based convenience store company made the nation's first drone deliveries to homes in Reno, Nevada.

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Drones delivered Slurpees and other snacks from 7-Eleven to customers who live within a one-mile radius of the store in Reno, Nevada.

The pilot program marks the first large-scale commercial delivery via drone in the United States, Recode reported. That means Irving-based 7-Eleven cut through the red tape faster than Amazon’s Prime Air and Alphabet’s Project Wing.

7-Eleven launched 77 flights and all of them made it to their destination.

All the drone flights were done autonomously but were still within line-of-sight of the pilot. NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration are testing low-altitude flights in the Reno area and could implement new traffic control procedures.

Most of the other deliveries by 7-Eleven, Amazon and others were one-off promotional tests.


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