On October 26, Meituan Drone launched its first route in Zhejiang Province: from Wuling Plaza to Dongshan Village, a straight-line distance of 5.3 km with a 10-minute flight time. Meals are delivered into smart aerial drop lockers in the village, completing the entire process in 20 minutes.
This route may be small, but it reveals the logic behind Meituan's low-altitude strategy—Meituan is building a network, not just individual lines.
In Shenzhen, coverage extends across six administrative districts, with daily peak orders exceeding 50,000 and an average delivery time of 8.3 minutes. The West Bund service in Shanghai, which began operations in September, represents the second systematic urban air network after Shenzhen and is the nation's first waterfront low-altitude delivery network; it transitioned to full commercial operation within the same month. Expansion is also underway simultaneously in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, and Dubai. As of the end of September 2026, cumulative orders have exceeded 1.1 million, with over 90,000 types of deliverable products.
The true key lies in qualifications: In April 2025, Meituan's self-developed fourth-generation drone obtained the nation's first low-altitude logistics operational certificate covering all regions, effectively securing a permit for normalized nationwide commercial operations. Subsequently, Meituan opened recruitment for authorized service providers, signing contracts with the first batch of 10 companies covering Zhejiang, Hunan, and Guangxi. The Fenghua route is a direct product of this strategy—scenic areas do not need to build their own technical teams; they can simply connect and use the service.
The challenge is not getting drones airborne, but whether the cost per ticket can match ground-based delivery. Meituan's solution is to target areas where ground delivery "cannot compete" first. Mountain villages are the most typical example: a 12-kilometer winding mountain road versus a 5.3-kilometer straight line means ground transport takes over an hour, while air transport takes ten minutes. The efficiency gap is exponential. In such scenarios, drones are not a supplement but the only viable solution. Scenic areas follow the same logic: high passenger density but difficult access for delivery. Air routes directly pull supply from commercial zones at the foot of the mountain up to the summit, creating incremental consumption. In urban areas, the model involves "rider pickup—drone mid-route flight—last-mile rider relay," keeping prices comparable to ground delivery while improving speed by 20-30%, with no extra cost to users.
The competitive advantages lie in three areas. First, transforming heavy assets into light ones: smart docking stations equipped with automated robotic arms for loading and unloading allow merchants and users to maintain their existing habits. Second, scenario replicability: offices, communities, scenic areas, and mountain villages share the same underlying air network and scheduling system, allowing changes in scenarios without changing infrastructure. Third, compliance-first approach: Meituan sells not just a single aircraft, but an operational solution that passes regulatory review and supports normalized, ongoing operations.
Customer segments previously unreachable by merchants become orders; scenic areas transform infrastructure into memorable experiences and growth drivers; residents in mountainous regions enjoy instant services equal to those in cities for the first time. For the industry, the low-barrier adoption model demonstrated in Fenghua represents the crucial step in moving low-altitude economy from demonstration projects to everyday business.