Wing to Launch Drone Delivery in Bay Area

Alphabet's drone delivery subsidiary, Wing, announced plans on Monday to launch its aerial delivery service in the San Francisco Bay Area within the coming months, bringing small packages, groceries, meals and over-the-counter medications directly to residents' homes.

The expansion marks a return to Wing's origins in the region, where the company began as an experimental project in Google's X innovation lab in 2012. Early tests involved drones transporting office supplies across Google's Mountain View campus, demonstrating the potential for quick, automated deliveries. Wing became an independent Alphabet company in 2018 and has since grown its operations, completing more than 750,000 residential deliveries across the United States and Australia while serving over two million customers.

In the Bay Area, Wing's drones will operate from distributed bases, including Walmart parking lots, to facilitate faster pickups. The service uses hybrid vertical-takeoff, fixed-wing aircraft capable of carrying packages weighing up to five pounds within a roughly six-mile radius. Customers can order through the Wing app or partner platforms, with deliveries typically arriving in 10 to 30 minutes....