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DoorDash Inc. is building its own delivery drones and has gained the necessary approvals to operate them commercially, the latest in its effort to delegate more orders to robots as a way of cutting delivery times.

DoorDash, the largest food-delivery company in the US, has gained the Part 135 air carrier certification from the Federal Aviation Administration to commercially operate a drone delivery service, it said in a statement on Wednesday. The approval grants the company the ability to operate the drones “beyond visual line of sight,” according to the FAA .

The company said it has been conducting pilot programs with various restaurants. Some of those merchants have seen their order volume grow during the test period, it added.

DoorDash plans to launch its own drone deliveries in the fall, a spokesperson said. The drone contains components that are primarily sourced from the US, the company said. More details about the service will be shared at the company’s annual product event in September,the representative added. Shares of DoorDash jumped as much as 1.5% in premarket trading before paring those gains.

The effort marks an expansion of DoorDash’s in-house robotics efforts to reduce reliance on human couriers for some orders, as their wages constitute a key expense to the business. Drones are also a way for the company to cut delivery times on orders from more remote locations that delivery workers may not want. More than a fifth of DoorDash orders require travel of three to five miles, and they take “nearly 25% longer to fulfill than shorter trips because finding the right Dasher takes time,” it said in the statement.

The in-house initiatives, which include a delivery robot unveiled last year that can navigate both sidewalks and roads, have so far been limited in scale compared with the automated deliveries DoorDash currently provides with more established hardware partners. Those include drone makers like Alphabet Inc.’s Wing and Flytrex, as well as autonomous-vehicle and sidewalk robot providers like Waymo, Serve Robotics Inc. and Coco Robotics.

DoorDash will continue to while adding its own drones as a delivery option. “The harder problem is the infrastructure and integration on the ground, and that’s our advantage,” the company said in the statement, citing its focus on real-time inventory reconciliation, routing and handoff systems at drive-throughs, rooftops and restaurant back doors.

Expanding its own efforts may also be a way for DoorDash to reduce exposure to main rival Uber Technologies Inc., which has invested in and teamed up with some of the same partners, including Flytrex and Serve.

DoorDash expects humans will still handle “a vast majority” of deliveries, including situations ill-suited for autonomous machines, like navigating through apartment buildings or fulfilling large orders, it said in the statement.

Photo: Photographer: Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg

Topics Commercial Lines Aviation Aerospace Drones