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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

After two years of development and testing, a commercial drone delivery operation has officially received the government go-ahead in the south of France [newatlas.com]. The General Directorate for Civil Aviation recently granted authorization to DPDgroup, the international express subsidiary of French postal service Le Groupe La Poste, to operate a weekly delivery service stretching between two depots in the Provence region.

Packages will be loaded onto a hexacopter in the town of Saint-Maximin-La-Sainte-Beaume, then autonomously flown about 15 km (9 miles) to a remotely-located group of tech start-ups near the town of Pourrières.

Users will drop off and pick up parcels at outdoor terminals at either end of the route. Those parcels can weigh up to 3 kg (6.6 lb), and will be automatically attached to or taken from the undercarriage of the drone.

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