Bengaluru startup Airbound ties up with Andhra Pradesh to build drone delivery network
Operations will initially begin in Guntur, before expanding to connect Amaravati, Vijayawada and Guntur.
The drones will deliver healthcare supplies, commercial goods and e-commerce deliveries, while improving mid-mile logistics across urban and semi-urban areas.
Airbound said it plans to deploy its blended-wing-body tailsitter aircraft, which it claims can deliver goods at costs up to 20 times lower than conventional logistics methods.
Through this partnership, Airbound says it is looking at building one of India’s most ambitious drone logistics networks, with delivery costs as low as 10 paise per kilometre.
The phased rollout will include pilot operations, route mapping, ecosystem partnerships, regulatory coordination and the development of interconnected drone corridors across the Amaravati Capital Region.
Airbound founder and CEO Naman Pushp said the company aims to transform logistics by building a shared drone delivery infrastructure that can be used by multiple industries.”When we make that work in Amaravati, Vijayawada and Guntur, it becomes a template for how cities and states across India can treat drone delivery as shared infrastructure that anyone can plug into, not something reserved for a handful of large players,” he said.
Airbound said it has completed more than 10,000 drone flights in India, including over 1,000 healthcare logistics flights with Narayana Health in Bengaluru in a pilot that began in January this year.
This partnership marks one of the first of kinds between a state government and a startup to deploy drone deliveries in a state.
Currently, other startups in the space include Delhi-based Skye Air, which launched commercial drone deliveries in some areas in Bengaluru and Gurugram last year.
FedEx and IIT Madras too completed India’s first intra-city drone delivery flight trials in Bengaluru in April this year in partnership with Amber Wings, an IIT Madras-incubated deep-tech start-up.
