Delta Air Lines [NYSE: DAL] has teamed with on-demand delivery company Roadie to launch a door-to-door, cross-country shipping service for time-critical goods such as medical equipment, and automotive and industrial parts. It is the first U.S. passenger airline to offer turnkey, round-the-clock pickup and delivery service in a segment already covered well by courier services.
DASH Door-to-Door is now available from Delta’s main hub in Atlanta to more than 55 cities in the U.S., and the companies plan to expand service to dozens more cities before the end of the year, according to an Oct. 29 joint announcement.
Roadie began operating in 2015 as a gig delivery company, matching one-way, same-day delivery with drivers using their personal vehicles to make deliveries on routes they were already traveling. Started as a consumer-to-consumer service, Roadie now handles deliveries from businesses such as Walmart and Home Depot.
The difference between DASH Door-to-Door and other services is that it only requires one tender for end-to-end movement. A shipper generally needs to make separate requests for the carrier, the pick up agent on the front end, and the delivery agent on the back end, Roadie and Delta officials say.
However, national and regional courier services provide the same next-flight-out delivery capability and the benefit is that couriers can take advantage of direct flights by working with multiple airlines. Delta doesn’t fly direct to all destinations from all origins so it is unclear what direct benefit the Delta service offers shippers. A national courier can also arrange for pick-up and delivery with a single transaction.
Customers can book DASH Door-to-Door on deltacargo.com and get a dynamic price quote with a single booking for flights with pickup/delivery, as well as end-to-end tracking and real-time status updates. Roadie drivers are approved by the Transportation Security Administration. Roadie says it has 150,000 registered drivers, but only those pre-screened by the TSA will participate in the program.
“The launch of DASH Door-to-Door is a game changer for Delta Cargo, as anyone who needs to get a small parcel somewhere urgently can now have a same-day delivery, door-to-door service in the U.S., without having to travel to the airport,” said Matt Weisenburg, Delta’s director of cargo strategy and alliances, in a statement. “We have been working with Roadie since 2015 on the passenger side of the business [to deliver delayed luggage] and have seen great customer satisfaction with the transparency and quality of the service. So, we wanted to continue this momentum and bring this innovative product offering to our cargo customers.”
DASH Door-to-Door is for packages less than 100 pounds and 90 linear inches and is available to all customers. TSA Known Shipper status is required to ship packages over 16 ounces.
“We have used the DASH Door-to-Door Service several times now and plan to use it more often for critical same-day delivery of critical parts shipments to our customers,” said Matthew Piercy, technical service manager at RONCHI America.