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“We need flying burgers,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s chief executive at the ridesharing company’s flying taxi conference in May. Unfortunately, this isn’t in reference to anything supernatural. However, like some other delivery service pioneers and tech companies (think Amazon) have been moving toward, Khosrowshahi’s comment was about creating what will be the world’s first fully functioning food delivery service that will operate via drones by 2021.
The subject was brought back to the conversation when the Wall Street Journal spotted an Uber job posting for someone with “flight standards and training” on Linkedin. However, the listing was removed shortly after WSJ reached out to Uber, to which the company replied that the posting did “not fully reflect our program, which is still in its very early days.”
Since its launch in 2014, UberEats has brought the ridesharing company a significant surplus in profit with its IPO valuing the delivery service at around $20 billion. So, logically speaking, expansion on this sector of Uber makes sense as a next step.
So, what steps does UberEats have to take between now and 2021 to be a drone-operated food delivery service? Well, the Federal Aviation Administration will have to establish regulations for drone management in the airspace. The company will also have to find (or invent) a drone that can actually carry out food deliveries. Also, as the now-removed listing implies, Uber will need someone to take the lead on “development of standards, procedures, and training while reducing operational risk for all UberExpress flight operations.”
So, until 2021 or later, those “flying burgers” of the future will just have to remain in our strangest fever dreams.
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Featured image by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images.
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