Australia Post to trial drones for parcel delivery

SICK of finding those red and white slips in your letter box? They could soon be a thing of the past as Australia Post trials drones to deliver parcels across the nation.

Swiss post testing drone parcel delivery.

AUSTRALIA’S 206-year-old postal service will start trialling drones to deliver parcels across the nation within a year.

Australia Post chief Ahmed Fahour says the service already had completed preliminary work with two experimental drones, but will undertake a trial next year as a part of a push for e-retailing in remote corners of the country.

But Australia Post says it will be working with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority for the vehicles that reach heights of 120m and travel at 75km/h.

The drones cost about $10,000 each and can carry parcels up to 2kg over 25km.

It is also investigating bigger drones that can carry loads up to 10kg and fly further.

The revelation comes as Mr Fahour said Australia Post was looking to process a record 1.3 million parcels a day this Christmas season as Australians increasingly click and send presents.

And he said the online gift delivery boom was starting now.

Australia Post CEO Ahmed Fahour.

“It is getting earlier and earlier,” he told the Herald Sun.

Mr Fahour said Australia Post saw delivery spikes for eBay items last January as unwanted gifts were unloaded, which would happen again.

Mr Fahour revealed a $20 million investment in “emerging and disruptive” eCommerce businesses as it seeks to modernise services to customers.

Australia Post will partner with Melbourne University at the institution’s Swanston St “Lab 14” innovation building, at the former Royal Women’s Hospital site.

Two businesses, as yet unidentified, have been chosen and will each receive $20,000 from the program.

The mail service is being forced to innovate as the hastening death of snail mail this year inflicted a $222 million full-year loss on the nation’s postal service.