The Federal Aviation Administration has granted Causey Aviation Unmanned the Standard Part 135 Air Carrier Certification. This certification will allow Flytrex, which provides drone delivery through its partnership with CAU, to deliver to over 82 million properties throughout the U.S., Flytrex said in an email to Restaurant Dive.
Flytrex delivers food, retail and other goods to customers’ backyards within five minutes in parts of North Carolina and Texas. Its restaurant partnerships include Charleys Philly Steaks, Brinker International, Jersey Mike’s, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Papa Johns and Wendy’s.
135 Certification will allow Flytrex and CAU to provide drone service beyond the line of sight. To date, 135 Certification has only been granted to four other companies: Amazon Prime Air, Alphabet’s Wing, UPS and Zipline, according to the FAA.
“We live in an era of instant gratification, where consumers want to get their food or goods faster, more reliably, more economically and more sustainably — and drone delivery has risen to the occasion,” Yariv Bash, CEO and co-founder of Flytrex, said in a press release.
Flytrex has been slowly growing its service across North Carolina and Texas as it receives FAA approvals. In July, the FAA gave Flytrex permission to expanded its service to 100,000 customers by raising its delivery radius from one to two nautical miles around its drone delivery stations in those two states. In September, Flytrex opened its fifth U.S. drone delivery station in Durham, North Carolina. It has three other stations in North Carolina at Fayetteville, Raeford and Holly Springs. In Texas, it has a station in Granbury, which is just outside of Dallas-Fort Worth.
Using Flytrex’s app, customers can order food and goods from stores, restaurants and cafes. Customers are notified of their order status until the food is lowered by wire into their backyards.
