Pizza Hut reportedly wants flying robots to help with deliveries — but don’t expect one to drop a stuffed-crust pie on your stoop.
The chain plans to dispatch drones to assist delivery drivers in Israel as part of a test program that will launch in June, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Instead of flying pizzas and wings directly to customers’ homes, the drones will carry multiple orders to landing zones such as parking lots where drivers will pick them up for the rest of the journey, the paper reported Monday.
The scheme will give Pizza Hut a chance to test drone technology within the bounds of Israel’s reportedly tight regulations. The country’s Ministry of Transportation will only allow the company to use the tiny aircraft within a roughly 50-square-mile zone using a single store as a base, according to the Journal.
Nevertheless, the store will be able to serve 7,000 households that can’t normally order delivery from that location — even though their meals will still arrive by car, the story says.
“Drone delivery is a sexy thing to talk about, but it’s not realistic to think we’re going to see drones flying all over the sky dropping pizzas into everyone’s backyards anytime soon,” Ido Levanon of Dragontail Systems, which is coordinating Pizza Hut’s test, told the Journal.
The drones won’t be able to fly enough dough for a pizza party — regulators only allow them to carry about 5.5 pounds of cargo on a given flight, roughly the weight of two pies and a bottle of Coke, the WSJ says.
Pizza Hut Israel president Udi Shamai told the paper that he hopes regulators will up the weight limit to 22 pounds by June.
Pizza Hut did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.