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Bloomberg
FedEx Corp is looking at using small self-flying cargo planes to serve remote areas after experimenting with a technology startup on autonomous aircraft, said Chief Executive Officer Fred Smith.
The effort builds on the courier’s work with Silicon Valley’s Reliable Robotics, which was founded by veterans of Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. With approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration, Reliable Robotics demonstrated in June a fully automated remote landing of a Cessna 208 Caravan turboprop owned by FedEx.
“This initiative deals with small turboprop airplanes and in this particular case the single-engine C208, which we’re looking at putting in very remote and uninhabited areas as part of our network,†Smith said at FedEx’s annual shareholder meeting.
FedEx pilots shouldn’t be concerned about robots stealing their jobs — for now. It would take decades for technology to replace humans in piloting large freighters, Smith said.