Domino’s Pizza has delivered the world’s first pizza via drone in New Zealand.
Domino’s performed a public drone test in June, but Thursday’s delivery marks the first time a customer had their pizza arrive from a flying robot. The customer reportedly ordered two pies at 11:19am local time, a peri-peri chicken pizza and a chicken and cranberry pizza to their home in Whangaparaoa, north of Auckland, New Zealand.
Domino’s is working with the drone delivery startup Flirtey on the project, which sends drones to customer’s homes utilizing GPS navigation while a drone pilot watches on to make sure nothing bad happens. Domino’s Group CEO and Managing Director Don Meij emphasized how important this development is for the company’s plans.
“We invested in this partnership, and technology, because we believe drone delivery will be an essential component of our pizza deliveries, so even more customers can receive the freshest, hottest pizza we can offer,” he said via statement.
Those words may ring ominously for pizza industry jobs. Delivery driver is one of the few jobs that anyone can do; meaning drones would leave a gaping hole in the already-shrinking job market for people without a college education. Domino’s statement addresses the job issue, but solely from the standpoint of jobs it will create, rather than take away.
According to Meij, “This will actually create jobs. As we expand, we will look to hire additional team members whose roles will be focused on drone order loading and fleet management.”
The question remains, will the number of jobs it creates be equal to the number it takes away? Either way, the drones are coming.
H/T Mashable
