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UK: Skyports, Royal Mail “Extend Commercial Drone Delivery Service Collaboration”

UK-based Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices and the country’s Roy­al Mail have cel­e­brat­ed a one-year anniver­sary of their pio­neer­ing drone deliv­ery ser­vice in Orkney, a series of islands off the north­east­ern coast of Scot­land, by announc­ing the project’s exten­sion until at least Feb­ru­ary 2026, reports a press release.

The release states, “The award-win­ning Orkney I‑Port project is the first UK com­mer­cial drone deliv­ery ser­vice to be imple­ment­ed on a reg­u­lar basis under exist­ing reg­u­la­to­ry frame­works (using a beyond visu­al line of sight with visu­al mit­i­ga­tion frame­work), estab­lish­ing a dai­ly inter-island mail dis­tri­b­u­tion ser­vice between Strom­ness on Orkney’s Main­land and the islands of Graem­say and Hoy.”

It con­tin­ues, “The project demon­strates how drone oper­a­tions can sup­port crit­i­cal pub­lic ser­vices such as Roy­al Mail postal deliv­er­ies and help the organ­i­sa­tion to meet its Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice Oblig­a­tion.”

The deliv­ery project improves con­nec­tiv­i­ty, safe­ty and ser­vice pro­vi­sions in the rur­al island region and also inves­ti­gates how 5G tech­nolo­gies can enable rur­al drone oper­a­tions. The time exten­sion is being fund­ed by Con­nec­tiv­i­ty for Remote Orkney Future Trans­port (CROFT), a UK Space Agency fund­ed project announced by Sky­ports dur­ing the recent Farn­bor­ough Air­show.

To date, the 517 flights, oper­at­ed in all weath­er con­di­tions, have cov­ered a total dis­tance of over 1,360 km, the equiv­a­lent of the dis­tance as the crow flies from Lon­don to Rome.

Sky­ports, work­ing in part­ner­ship with Orkney Islands Coun­cil Har­bour Author­i­ty and Loganair, “has sig­nif­i­cant­ly improved ser­vice lev­els for rur­al com­mu­ni­ties, short­en­ing Roy­al Mail deliv­ery times by up to 24 hours and improv­ing their effi­cien­cy and reli­a­bil­i­ty,” adds the release. Mean­while, Roy­al Mail’s local postal work­ers have act­ed as visu­al observers for the flights, while Loganair has sup­port­ed pilot trans­port to and from Orkney.

The new phase of the project will embed key learn­ings and improve­ments from the first stage of oper­a­tions, includ­ing:-

: Hard­ware and soft­ware upgrades — Sky­ports and drone man­u­fac­tur­er Speed­bird have made sig­nif­i­cant updates to the drone tech­nol­o­gy in the past 12 months to enhance oper­a­tional reli­a­bil­i­ty and enable flights in high­er winds and more adverse weath­er, in prepa­ra­tion for fly­ing dur­ing the win­ter months.

: Remote pilots — Sky­ports’ pilot-in-com­mand now oper­ates the drones remote­ly from the company’s state-of-the-art Remote Oper­a­tions Cen­tre near Ayles­bury. This change stream­lines oper­a­tions and sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduces the need for Sky­ports’ staff to remain on the ground in Orkney.

: New take-off points ‑The touch­down and lift off area (TLOF) relo­cat­ed to Roy­al Mail deliv­ery office in Strom­ness to fur­ther stream­line oper­a­tions and reduce deliv­ery times.

: Train­ing of Roy­al Mail staff — Roy­al Mail staff trained to man­age tasks relat­ed to the receipt and dis­patch of mail deliv­ery drones, reduc­ing per­son­nel demand and sup­port­ing more agile oper­a­tions.

Alex Brown, Direc­tor, Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices, com­ment­ed, “Our Orkney flights with Roy­al Mail demon­strate the via­bil­i­ty of long-term drone oper­a­tions and high­light the role that new avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies can play in sup­port­ing essen­tial pub­lic ser­vices.”

He con­tin­ued, “This project also shines a spot­light on the work we do beyond fly­ing. To secure the strong growth tra­jec­to­ry we believe drones can achieve, we’re work­ing hard to sup­port the devel­op­ment of an enabling ecosys­tem for drone ser­vices. Our next phase of work in Orkney will explore how 5G can sup­port drone oper­a­tions in harsh rur­al envi­ron­ments and pro­vide key learn­ings that we can apply to oth­er future projects.”

Chris Pax­ton, USO Pro­gram Man­ag­er, Roy­al Mail, remarked,“Royal Mail is always explor­ing inno­v­a­tive ways to con­tin­ue to meet our Uni­ver­sal Ser­vice Oblig­a­tion to deliv­er to the UK’s 32 mil­lion address­es. Through our suc­cess­ful tri­al with Sky­ports, we are mak­ing our deliv­er­ies to remote com­mu­ni­ties quick­er, more reli­able and more envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly. We’d like to thank our Orkney posties for help­ing with this tri­al and upskilling them­selves in the process.”

Since its launch in 2017, Sky­ports has con­sid­ered rur­al Scot­land a prime exam­ple of where drone ser­vices can bring sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits. The com­pa­ny has com­plet­ed sev­er­al tri­als and tests across the coun­try, includ­ing five projects with Roy­al Mail which explore the fea­si­bil­i­ty of using drone oper­a­tions to deliv­er let­ters and parcels. The Orkney mail deliv­ery project is the longest run­ning project to date.

Coun­cil­lor Kristo­pher Leask, Orkney Islands Coun­cil­lor (Kirk­wall West and Orphir) and Chair of the Devel­op­ment and Infra­struc­ture Com­mit­tee, said,  “The now proven oper­a­tional abil­i­ty of drone deliv­ery tech­nol­o­gy for our postal ser­vice has shown how island com­mu­ni­ties can ben­e­fit from inno­va­tion.  Sup­port­ing a bet­ter pro­vi­sion of ser­vices across organ­i­sa­tions for our fer­ry linked isles is a pri­or­i­ty for us as a coun­cil.” 

He added, “I’m delight­ed to see the com­mit­ment to Orkney shown in the exten­sion of drone deliv­er­ies, and I look for­ward to see­ing how Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices and Roy­al Mail can fur­ther work with com­mu­ni­ties to improve the ser­vices the depend on.”

Part of the North­ern Isles along with Shet­land, Orkney is 10 miles north of  Caith­ness and has about 70 islands, of which 20 are inhab­it­ed. The largest island, the Main­land, has an area of 202 sq. miles, mak­ing it the sixth largest Scot­tish island and the tenth biggest in the British Isles. Orkney’s largest set­tle­ment, and also its admin­is­tra­tive cen­tre, is Kirk­wall. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://skyportsdroneservices.com

(Images: Skyports/Royal Mail)

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