New Delhi- Redcliffe Labs and Skye Air Mobility began Long term Drone Pilot Flights from the remote hills, Uttarkashi to Sahastradhara, Dehradun, on December 6th. The Redcliffe test samples from their collection centre in Uttarkashi, are sent to the Dehradun Redcliffe Labs in just 90 minutes via drone delivery.
Bringing further relief to the residents of Uttarkashi, Redcliffe Labs will be daily operating flights for both routine and specialized tests sample collection in an attempt to provide affordable & high-quality diagnostic services. Being the first diagnostic company in India to transport samples via drones, Redcliffe Labs is ensuring that people living in smaller towns or remote areas get access to high-quality, affordable diagnostics.
To eliminate challenges like poor accessibility to locations, drones have an important and rising role. The Drone Pilot Flights from Uttarkashi Skye Hub to Dehradun Skye Hub will reduce the delivery time which takes 6-8 hours by road and 12 hours during a landslide to only 1.5 hours.
This will be first of its kind end-to-end delivery via connected Skye Hubs at both ends relaying real-time flight information to the Skye Air’s Central Command Centre, Gurugram. The real-time payload health monitoring shall also be there.
Commenting on starting the drone pilot flights in Uttarakhand, Dheeraj Jain, Founder, Redcliffe Labs, said “Given Uttarkashi’s hilly terrain, the region has limited connectivity that consequently acts as a barrier to accessibility of high-quality diagnostic services. On this front, our goal in undertaking the drone pilot flight from Uttarkashi Skye Hub to Dehradun Skye Hub is to effectively connect every part of the state to a high-quality diagnostic centre. Our team is overjoyed to connect the residents of Uttarkashi with our lab services in Dehradun. The residents will no longer need to travel to the larger cities for their diagnostic needs thanks to easy and reliable access. Significantly, with the help of drone delivery the turnaround time (TAT) for these samples can be maintained within the same day of receiving the sample, which usually in a place like Uttarkashi used to take more than 24 hrs.”
“The current form of logistics simply does not work for the healthcare industry in such a terrain geography. The need is to have a solution which is providing a faster, sustainable and scalable supply; drones rightly fit into elevating delivery, the Skye Air way. We are enthused to take our partnership with Redcliffe Labs to the next level of beginning long term flights helping the residents of Uttarkashi to get advantage from such services. Skye Air is working together towards a mission to impact lives at large and with our partners here, we are one step ahead in that journey” said Mr. Ankit Kumar, CEO of Skye Air Mobility.
It is noteworthy to mention that the Long-term Drone Pilot Flights are also a part of the Redcliffe and Skye Air tie-up. Over the past few months, they have done 50+ successful trial flights in North India.
“Redcliffe Labs is planning to expand its operations in the country through a series of upcoming initiatives in the next 12 months. By leveraging drone technology, Redcliffe Labs makes diagnostic care accessible to the remotest areas of the country. Using drone technology to collect test samples is one such initiative. The idea is to reach 500M+ Indians by 2027.” further said Dheeraj Jain
“This is a remarkable day giving pace to the Drone Delivery ecosystem in India to rise. Our core aim is to enable change, bring the much-needed disruption in the first & last mile logistics industry to move faster and more efficiently. Skye Air is proactively working in the healthcare, quick commerce and ecommerce verticals enabling solutions for faster and cost-effective deliveries” further added by Ankit Kumar
