Royal Mail has started employing drones to deliver post in the Orkney islands, paving the way for future drone deliveries to islands across the UK and the mainland during emergencies.
This drone service, which operates between the village of Stromness on Orkney’s main island and the nearby islands of Hoy and Graemsay, is Royal Mail’s first permanent drone delivery service. The drones have the capacity to carry up to 6kg of mail.
Using drones enables Royal Mail to provide a quicker and more secure delivery service to islands like the Orkneys, eliminating the need for ferries or scheduled air services that are often cancelled due to weather conditions, tides, and inconvenient timetables for the postal service.
Royal Mail and the NHS have been testing drone services on Scottish islands for some time. In particular, the NHS has conducted trials using drones to transport urgent medical samples from the small Hebridean islands of Coll and Tiree.
Chris Paxton, the head of drone trials at Royal Mail, stated that these flights are significantly faster and more efficient, contributing to a reduction in carbon emissions.
However, due to air safety regulations, the drones can only be operated when the operators have visual contact with the aircraft at all times. Therefore, operators are stationed at both Stromness and on the island for each flight.
Upon reaching Hoy, where the famous sea stack known as the Old Man of Hoy is located, the drones are received by Fay and Albert Clark, long-term crofters and minibus drivers who have been serving as part-time posties with the assistance of their son Adam.
This drone service is a collaboration between Royal Mail, Skyports Drone Service, the islands’ port authority, and the regional airline Logan Air. It is an expensive initiative that will initially run for three months, with the Department of Transport covering the costs.
Paxton believes that similar services could be established in other archipelagos, such as the Farne Islands off Northumberland, or in the Isles of Scilly. They could also be utilized during civil emergencies where rural communities are isolated due to floods.
In 2020, Royal Mail conducted a one-month “air bridge” trial between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, using a fixed-wing drone to transport essential mail, PPE, and Covid testing kits. However, existing regulations require the closure of airspace to all other aircraft during such trials, posing a practical obstacle for implementing regular postal services.
This is not the first time inter-island postal services have been experimented with in Scotland. In the 1930s, a German rocketeer named Gerhard Zucker attempted twice to transport mail between Harris and Scarp in the Outer Hebrides using rockets loaded with envelopes, but both rockets exploded.