By Charlie Pogacar
In July 2024, PMQ Pizza published a story that declared “Drone Delivery Is On The Brink Of Reshaping The Pizza Segment.” The story detailed how Jet’s Pizza and Pagliacci Pizza were two chains hoping to implement drone delivery by the end of 2024.
It’s been 18 months since that story was published, and neither Jet’s, Pagliacci—or any other pizza chain for that matter—appear to be delivering pizzas via drone in any meaningful way. In Summer 2025, Zipline, the drone delivery company Jet’s and Pagliacci were partnering with, declined to speak on the record with PMQ Pizza—perhaps things were happening in the background, but PMQ wasn’t privy to such things.
So what’s been going on in the world of drone delivery? Will it ever be a reality for the pizza industry? We recently caught up with Aaron Zhang, founder and CEO of A2Z Drone Delivery, Inc., an American aerospace and engineering company advancing commercial unmanned aerial vehicles. The company is currently testing its drones outside of Shanghai, China, where the company has “beyond the line of site” (or BLVOS) permitting. The area of China is home to the world’s largest drone dock network.
Related: Drone Delivery Is on the Brink of Reshaping the Pizza Segment
Zhang sees a not-so-distant future where drones really are—for real this time!—delivering pizza in the U.S. One of the reasons he’s confident about it? Drones are currently—as we speak—delivering pizzas in China, and Zhang noted that the regulations in the U.S. are on the verge of a big change.
Here’s a Q&A, edited for clarity, with Zhang regarding drone delivery and its implications for the pizza segment.
PMQ: At a high level, why does drone delivery matter for restaurants, beyond just novelty?
Zhang: Streamlining last-mile food deliveries is more than just a sales gimmick. Yes, there’s a marketing benefit from the novelty of a customer receiving their lunch from a drone—it certainly stands out on a customer’s TikTok feed—but with food deliveries soaring above congested roadways, their pizza is still hot and their smoothie is still frozen when they arrive.
Eschewing the traditional combustion engines that propel most food deliveries is also kinder to the environment and mitigates traffic volumes on the roads. Financially viable last-mile food deliveries have been a target beyond the horizon for years, but new technologies have come to market that make the economics work for local restaurants willing to work together with partners launching other drone services.
PMQ: Eighteen months ago, I was told pizza chains would be delivering by now. What has been the hold up?
Zhang: The promise of profitability in drone-borne restaurant deliveries lies in the ability to scale the operations, and most of the current trial operations are still reliant on a great deal of individual manpower to safely conduct their deliveries.
In the U.S., most are required to maintain visual-line-of-sight with the commercial delivery drone, making a string of forward observers a costly investment to reach farther from the delivery hub. The limited range of the delivery drones also means the service can only reach short distances from the hub of operation.
Most also rely on hub operators—a staffed position that swaps drone batteries and packages orders for aerial delivery—which again contributes to higher overhead costs.
The most limiting structural constraint is that these trials remain siloed to a single restaurant brand, leaving that one brand to shoulder the financial investment to set up the operation, staff it with pilots and operators, and manage the infrastructure.
PMQ: Are there restaurant brands and cities where this is already working?
Zhang: In the United States, several restaurant delivery trials are underway with drone makers and operators partnering with popular restaurants. In the Dallas–Fort Worth region, DoorDash is conducting trials, and Chipotle is speeding its burritos to customers’ doorsteps. In California, Dave’s Hot Chicken is offering drone delivery services in some Northridge neighborhoods.
These trials have played an important role in demonstrating to regulators that the missions can be conducted safely. On the success of these trials and others, U.S. drone delivery regulations are currently being rewritten to make the enterprise more accessible.
Across the ocean, in Europe—where retail drone delivery regulations have outpaced domestic rulemaking in the U.S.—local restaurants already rely on drones for daily delivery missions. AHA in Iceland launched the world’s first operational drone delivery service back in 2017, and reported early success reducing delivery costs by up to 60%. In Ireland, Just Eat Takeaway is ramping up operations in Dublin and plans to expand.
PMQ: How does the regulatory environment in the U.S. differ from how it works globally?
Zhang: While restaurant drone delivery is possible under current U.S. regulations, operators need to secure waivers under the FAA’s Part 107 rules, though new rules—often referred to as Part 108—are expected to change that in the coming months.
In Europe, the regulatory environment is more mature. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency recently streamlined its risk-assessment process, making beyond-visual-line-of-sight delivery actionable with proper planning and safety measures, although each country still regulates its own airspace.
Australia, Canada and China all have mature BVLOS operations. In Central and South America, countries like Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Peru and Uruguay have operational drone delivery services. In Africa, countries like Rwanda, Ghana, Kenya, Ivory Coast and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have adopted medical drone delivery, signaling potential for expanded commercial use cases.
PMQ: What is A2Z doing differently from earlier trials?
Zhang: Our project outside Shanghai is leveraging new technologies to share the startup investment beyond a single restaurant brand or even a single type of drone service.
We developed a drone dock called the A2Z AirDock—a unique, simplified design that automates charging without the need for human interaction. With payload management tools built into the drones, the loading process is simplified so untrained restaurant workers can load the food orders themselves.
Eliminating the manpower needed to swap batteries and load payloads directly lowers operational cost and makes these deliveries more affordable.
PMQ: How did this shared network come together?
Zhang: We initially built a network of AirDocks and drones to help a local municipal water department monitor reservoirs—a manpower-intensive process that previously required staff to travel by vehicle and on foot.
As the network grew, more regional businesses and agencies added services, including water sampling and traffic surveys. The network now covers 965 square miles.
With the physical infrastructure already in place, enabling restaurant drone delivery was simply a matter of layering a small fleet of purpose-built food delivery drones into the ecosystem. Today, 10 independent restaurants are using it to bolster their sales.
PMQ: Walk us through how a typical delivery works.
Zhang: Restaurants receive orders through a Yelp-like app, and a remote operator dispatches a drone to the dock nearest the restaurant. Some staff walk their orders directly to a nearby dock; others use a short ground trip.
The drone lowers a payload hook, the worker hangs the bag, and the onboard winch weighs it to ensure it’s within safe limits. The drone then flies a preplanned route to the destination, stopping at charging stations if needed.
At the delivery point, the drone hovers high above people and buildings and lowers the food to the customer. The hook automatically releases the bag so there’s no direct human-drone interaction, eliminating a major source of potential error.
PMQ: Are pizza deliveries happening via drone in China right now? And is the pizza segment an ideal space to scale drone delivery?
Zhang: While I’m not familiar with a specific pizza chain that has launched its own drone delivery service, there are certainly some pizza shops taking advantage of drone delivery. Within our county-wide dock network, there is a local pizza shop that delivers with our shared drone fleet. The regular Chinese diet doesn’t necessarily include as much pizza as ours in America, but the tourists who frequent the rural resorts and campgrounds in the area do like to splurge on pie while on vacation.
From a use-case perspective, drone-delivered pizzas are an ideal application of the technology. A drone will complete the delivery faster than a ground vehicle, and it’s emissions free. Customers don’t need to tip a drone pilot they never meet either, and restaurant owners have an alternative to costly third-party delivery services that eat at their bottom lines. With the U.S. regulations evolving now, the pizza segment is well-positioned to be a leader in drone delivery as it scales.
PMQ: So what’s the big takeaway for pizza restaurants watching this space?
Zhang: Navigating regulation can be complicated, so restaurant owners considering drone delivery are best served by contacting reputable drone service or technology providers to understand local rules, hardware requirements and potential partners.
The key shift is moving away from siloed, single-brand trials and toward shared infrastructure that spreads cost, increases scale and makes drone delivery economically realistic.
That’s what makes this feel less like a novelty experiment—and more like a viable operational tool.
Charlie Pogacar is PMQ’s senior editor.
