Manna Aero to Begin “World’s Largest Drone Delivery Trial”

Jour­nal­ist Char­lie Tay­lor writ­ing for www.businesspost.ie scored a scoop this week after inter­view­ing Ireland’s own Bob­by Healy, Founder and CEO of Man­na Aero or Man­na Drone Deliv­ery as the com­pa­ny wish­es to be called now.

The lat­est news from the Emer­ald Isle is that Healy, true to his ambi­tious mind­set, is crank­ing up Manna’s deliv­ery tri­als by set­ting his eyes on Blan­chard­stown, a large out­er sub­urb of Dublin with 38,000 homes cov­er­ing 100,000 peo­ple.

After suc­cess­ful­ly con­duct­ing over 100,000 tri­als in the small­er towns of Oran­more, Coun­ty Gal­way and Bal­brig­gan, Coun­ty Dublin, Blan­chard­stown is the next step up with a town hous­ing over 180 big brand stores, restau­rants and cafes across three retail parks. It is the largest shop­ping cen­tre in Ire­land cov­er­ing 85 acres and boasts over 600 park­ing spaces along with 600 dai­ly bus rides. All retail out­lets will be giv­en an oppor­tu­ni­ty to join the tri­al. The ser­vice begins lat­er this year.

“Man­na is the only busi­ness I’ve start­ed that keeps me awake at night, but it is also the most fun — its poten­tial is phe­nom­e­nal” (Bob­by Healy, Man­na Drone Deliv­ery)

Healy tells Tay­lor, “What we’ll be doing is about five times big­ger than the ser­vice we’ve been oper­at­ing in Bal­brig­gan. We’ve nev­er done this many deliv­er­ies a day, or run as many air­craft as we are going to do in Blan­chard­stown, so it is a big under­tak­ing for us.”

He con­tin­ues, “Ini­tial­ly, we will be doing 500 flights a day with plans to get to 1,000 deliv­er­ies a day at peak, which is a greater num­ber than is hap­pen­ing any­where in the world. The new oper­a­tion will be all-weath­er, which we haven’t done before. In addi­tion, the air­craft we will be using car­ries a larg­er pay­load of 3.5kg and 30 litres of vol­ume.”

But Healy’s ambi­tion nev­er rests.

After rais­ing USD50 mil­lion since the company’s for­ma­tion in 2018, Man­na plans to launch fur­ther drone deliv­ery ser­vices in 25 loca­tions next year, of which 15 will be in Ire­land. Healy esti­mates that between 1 mil­lion and 1.5 mil­lion peo­ple in Ire­land should be able to use drone deliv­er­ies by the end of 2024.

The oth­er 10 areas may well cov­er Europe. To finance this major endeav­our, Healy says he will need fur­ther financ­ing which opens the door for the com­pa­ny to float on the Stock Mar­ket, allow­ing the pub­lic to invest in Manna’s huge pro­ject­ed growth.

Part of Blan­chard­stown’s Shop­ping Cen­tre

Mean­while, Man­na has part­nered with Fal­con AM Real Estate, the oper­a­tor of the Blan­chard­stown Cen­tre, to seek plan­ning per­mis­sion from Dublin City Coun­cil to repur­pose an exist­ing car park as an aer­i­al deliv­ery hub. The appli­ca­tion says Man­na has already informed the sup­port­ive Irish Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty about the project and received oper­a­tion licences to fly drones in the area. The drones will take off from pads on the ground between 8am and 9pm, sev­en days a week, trav­el­ling up to 2km from base at a height of 60 metres.

Healy com­ments, “We haven’t signed sup­pli­er agree­ments yet, but are in talks with the most pop­u­lar Irish restau­rant and gro­cery brands, as well as some very well known inter­na­tion­al ones. We will also be invit­ing any and all local ven­dors to par­tic­i­pate and sell their prod­ucts to every home we fly to.”

No def­i­nite launch date has been con­firmed for the deliv­ery ser­vice, but Healy says oper­a­tions would com­mence “in the com­ing months”. It is expect­ed the tri­al will last for at least six months and longer if suc­cess­ful.

Healy remarks, “We’re a small coun­try but one with giant sub­urbs, which makes it ide­al for drone deliv­er­ies. It’s an expen­sive busi­ness, but we’re near the point where for the first time we’ll no longer be loss-mak­ing. By the end of this year, Man­na will be mak­ing mon­ey on every flight it oper­ates.” Adding, “There is no oth­er drone com­pa­ny any­where close to being prof­it-mak­ing out­side of us.”

Ire­land has become a leader in drone tech­nol­o­gy on the back of Manna’s suc­cess assist­ed by a help­ful reg­u­la­tor in the Irish Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, which intro­duced the world’s first drone-spe­cif­ic leg­is­la­tion.

The only com­pe­ti­tion Man­na faces is Wing, a drone deliv­ery com­pa­ny owned by Google’s par­ent com­pa­ny Alpha­bet, who set up a tri­al in the small town of Lusk, locat­ed about 15 miles north of Dublin city cen­tre, late last year. It is unclear how this is far­ing.

Man­na has devel­oped avi­a­tion-grade drones that fly at 60km/h and deliv­er goods includ­ing gro­ceries, take­aways and med­i­cines with­in a 3km radius in under three min­utes.

Man­na drones have mul­ti­ple safe­ty sys­tems in place, includ­ing onboard sen­sors. They are licensed by the Irish Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty to oper­ate along pre-agreed flight paths that ensure they don’t come into con­tact with oth­er air­craft.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.manna.aero

(News Source: www.businesspost.ie)

(Top image: Bob­by Healy — Andrew Downes/Xposure)