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Papa Johns: drone delivery without the pizza. admin May 18, 2026 SouthernWorldwide.com - Your next Papa Johns order could soon be delivered from the sky, though don't expect a large pepperoni pizza to be the first item to descend. Papa Johns has initiated a drone delivery trial in partnership with Wing, a drone company owned by Alphabet. The initial flights are being conducted near Sun Valley Commons in Indian Trail, North Carolina, a suburb of Charlotte. Customers within the eligible service area can place orders through the Wing app and receive a select menu of Papa Johns Oven Toasted Sandwiches, including options like Philly Cheesesteak, Chicken Bacon Ranch, and Steak & Mushroom. While other companies, such as Little Caesars, are already experimenting with drone delivery for full-sized pizzas in Texas, Papa Johns is adopting a different strategy by starting with sandwiches. The company is currently utilizing a smaller, drone-compatible menu as it collaborates with Wing to develop aerodynamically designed packaging. This specialized packaging is intended to facilitate smoother aerial delivery of future pizza orders. The reason for this phased approach is rooted in the practicalities of drone delivery. A sandwich box is inherently more compact and easier to handle than a pizza box, which is wide, flat, and can be unstable. Anyone who has transported a pizza in a car knows the importance of keeping it level to prevent toppings from shifting. This same challenge is amplified when a drone is involved, as drones have payload limitations and require packages that are stable during flight and compatible with their delivery mechanisms. This explains why Papa Johns is beginning its drone delivery service with sandwiches. Wing has indicated that both companies are working on custom, aerodynamic packaging designs, drawing insights from both Papa Johns' food products and Wing's drone technology. Essentially, the sandwich test serves as a foundational step while the companies refine the methods for packaging food items for future drone delivery. For the time being, the skies are open for toasted sandwiches, but pizza delivery via drone will have to wait. Currently, customers must order through the Wing app. However, the long-term vision is to integrate Wing's drone network directly into Papa Johns' own mobile application and its proprietary AI-powered food ordering agent, which is built on Google Cloud. This integration could eventually make drone delivery a seamless option within the Papa Johns ordering experience, rather than a separate, experimental service. Wing views this partnership as a significant step beyond a single restaurant test, marking its first direct collaboration with a national restaurant brand. This initiative also builds upon Papa Johns' existing relationship with Alphabet through Google Cloud, positioning the partnership as a model for AI-driven restaurant ordering and drone delivery. "This partnership represents a genuine collaboration, bringing together Wing's groundbreaking technology with Papa Johns' dedication to innovation," stated Heather Rivera, Chief Business Officer at Wing. "Together, we are establishing a new framework for how agentic commerce and leading operational design will shape the future of food delivery." Papa Johns emphasizes that this endeavor is about building the future of hot food delivery. This involves more than just attaching food to a drone; it requires adjustments in how workers prepare orders, dedicated space within restaurants for drone pickups, and packaging that can withstand the journey. Furthermore, the technology must be integrated into busy meal times without causing delays in store operations. The latter point is perhaps the most critical test, as a drone delivery system is only effective if it alleviates congestion rather than adding to it. While pizza might seem like an ideal candidate for rapid delivery due to its popularity and the desire for quick meals, pizza boxes present several challenges for drone delivery. A pizza box has a large surface area, which can compromise stability. The box must also remain level, whereas a sandwich can tolerate minor movements. A hot pizza with melted cheese and toppings, however, is far more sensitive to jostling. In response to these challenges, other companies are developing larger drones and specialized delivery systems. Flytrex, for instance, recently announced a partnership with Little Caesars in Wylie, Texas, utilizing its Sky2 drone. This drone is capable of carrying up to 8.8 pounds, traveling up to four miles, and delivering up to two large pizzas along with drinks. This demonstrates that pizza delivery by drone is achievable, and it also sheds light on why Papa Johns might be pursuing a more gradual implementation. Despite ongoing discussions about drone delivery for years, it remains a novel concept for many communities. Wing already collaborates with companies like Walmart and DoorDash and has expanded its services in several metropolitan areas. However, the drone delivery sector faces several obstacles. Environmental factors like weather can disrupt flights, and regulatory frameworks can impose limitations on drone operations. Restaurants need to train their staff on new procedures, and customers must reside within the designated delivery zones. Furthermore, financial viability is a key consideration. While a drone delivery system might appear impressive in promotional videos, the crucial question is whether each delivery can be cost-effective when the system operates daily. For residents in the test area, this initiative offers an exciting opportunity to experience a potentially faster food delivery method and gain a glimpse into the future of takeout. However, the rollout of drone delivery is expected to be incremental, at least initially. Customers will need to be within the correct delivery zone, use the designated app, and select menu items compatible with the drone system's carrying capabilities. A more significant transformation could occur later. If Wing's system becomes directly integrated with the Papa Johns app, customers might eventually see drone delivery as a standard option at checkout, making the experience feel more conventional than using a separate drone app for ordering. The primary advantages for consumers are anticipated to be speed and convenience, as drones can bypass traffic, parking challenges, and some of the delays that affect traditional delivery services during peak hours. Concurrently, practical concerns need to be addressed. Residents may have questions regarding noise levels, safety protocols, privacy issues, and the presence of drones in their neighborhoods. These concerns are likely to intensify as more restaurants adopt similar delivery methods. Papa Johns' decision to deliver sandwiches via drone instead of pizza might seem counterintuitive at first, given its identity as a pizza chain. However, when considering the logistics of transporting a hot, potentially unstable pizza under a drone, the sandwich-first approach becomes understandable. This strategy allows the company to test the technology, offer customers a faster delivery option, and continue to use traditional delivery methods for pizzas until the drone system is fully capable of handling hot pies without compromising their quality. If drone delivery becomes widespread, the question arises: would you be enthusiastic about receiving dinner delivered from the sky, or would the constant buzzing of drones overhead become a nuisance? Southern Worldwide invite you to share your thoughts by writing to Southern Worldwide at CyberGuy.com. Post Views: 34

NHS London launches medical drone deliveries with Matternet. Matternet has launched drone delivery operations in Central London, connecting two of the NHS's busiest hospital campuses with aerial routes designed to move medical cargo in minutes. The service, operated in partnership with British healthcare logistics company Apian, uses Matternet's M2 drone system to transport diagnostic samples, laboratory specimens, pharmaceuticals and other time-sensitive payloads between hospital sites. Matternet is one of the major drone delivery companies based in California's Silicon Valley. The London news marks a significant milestone for the company, which has done some small scale urban home deliveries in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as other projects including operations in Saudi Arabia. It's also been running commercial medical drone delivery operations since 2017 in Switzerland and 2019 in the U.S... And the company has claimed it has enabled tens of thousands of commercial flights over dense urban environments across three continents. Drone Girl readers with long memories will note that medical deliveries in the U.K. are also familiar territory. London has been here before. London's medical drone deliveries in 2024. In November 2024, The Drone Girl covered a drone delivery service operating between Guy's Hospital and St Thomas' Hospital - two NHS facilities less than two miles apart on either side of the Thames, but separated by up to 40 minutes of London ground traffic. That service was operated by Wing, the drone delivery company affiliated with Google, also working with Apian and the NHS Guy's and St Thomas' Foundation Trust. That Wing operation was framed as a test to prove that medical drone delivery could work in one of Europe's most complex airspaces, over dense urban populations, past landmarks like Big Ben and the London Eye. It appears to have worked well enough that the NHS is now doubling down with a second operator and a more explicitly infrastructure-oriented approach. What's different this time with Matternet. The Matternet launch shares a partner with Apian, but it brings different hardware, different credentials, and a different stated ambition. For starters, Matternet's M2 drone is the only drone delivery system in the world to have achieved FAA Type Certification, the same regulatory standard applied to manned aircraft. The stated goal this time is also more expansive. Whereas the Wing operation was described as a live trial, Matternet and Apian are explicitly framing this as the foundation of a city-wide medical drone network for the NHS. It even suggested plans to expand to additional hospital campuses, payload types, and healthcare use cases across London as the network develops. The consistent thread across both operations is Apian, which is a British company co-founded by NHS doctors that provides the logistics orchestration layer connecting hospitals, labs, and pharmacies through drones, ground robotics, and coordination software. Apian is not a drone company, but rather the platform that makes drone delivery work within the operational reality of NHS hospital systems through work such as integrating with existing workflows, managing routing and scheduling, and handling the logistics coordination that determines whether any of this is actually useful clinically. Given that Apian has now worked with both Wing and Matternet, it suggests that Apian is positioning itself as the NHS's hardware-agnostic drone logistics infrastructure provider. Did you enjoy this analysis of the drone industry? If so please consider making a one-time or recurring donation to TheDroneGirl.com. I write these stories as a side project because it brings me joy, but it also brings me web hosting costs. Make a one-time donation. Make a monthly donation. Your contribution is appreciated. Donate monthly Make a yearly donation. Your contribution is appreciated. Donate yearly If you want to help cover my web hosting fees (or just want to buy me a cup of coffee to fuel my next article), please donate to TheDroneGirl on PayPal!