McDonald’s has taken its delivery service to the skies with a new drone route capable of flying orders across Shanghai in as little as 10 minutes.
The fast food giant partnered with Chinese delivery platform Meituan to launch the service in the city’s West Bund district on September 10.
Its first flight carried a Big Mac meal from the McDonald’s restaurant on Longteng Avenue to a designated collection point at West Bund Skatepark.
The partnership marks the first dedicated drone delivery route created for a restaurant brand in China, according to McDonald’s.
Customers can order more than 30 McDonald’s products through Meituan, including burgers, snacks, drinks, McCafé items and McFlurrys.
However, the drones will not drop Big Macs directly into customers’ yards. Orders are instead delivered to designated collection stations, where customers scan a QR code to retrieve their food.
McDonald’sMcDonald’s drone deliveries can arrive in 10 minutes
Once an order is prepared, McDonald’s employees take it to a smart drone port outside the restaurant. An automated robotic arm loads the food before the drone flies along a predetermined route to the collection point.
Each aircraft can carry approximately 5.2lbs of food, which McDonald’s says is enough for most combinations of burgers, sides and drinks. Under suitable flying conditions, deliveries can arrive in around 10 minutes.
Meituan’s wider West Bund network already supports nearly 20 restaurant chains and hundreds of products. That figure is expected to grow to more than 40 brands before the end of 2026, according to TechNode.
McDonald’sThe company says its fourth-generation drones include nighttime visual positioning, obstacle avoidance and emergency landing features. Meituan has now completed more than one million commercial drone orders across cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Dubai.
Drone-delivered fast food is also beginning to take off elsewhere. Papa Johns and Little Caesars recently launched aerial delivery services, while Chipotle tested its “Zipotle” program in Texas.
DoorDash has also entered the race by launching its own DoorDash Air service to compete with Amazon and Walmart.
I’m Abhishek Sharma, an author at TigerJek.com. I enjoy exploring games, testing different strategies, and turning what I learn into clear, useful guides. My goal is to help players understand the game better and improve without the usual confusion.
