Flytrex and food delivery service AHA have launched a drone food delivery service in Reykjavik, Iceland to make it faster to receive steaming hot food.

Although food deliveries aren’t a new thing – after all, Just Eat has trialled food deliveries, so have other businesses including Uber – it’s a new method for Reykjavik – terrain split by waterways, which makes it a tricky place for traditional food delivery cars and bikes to navigate.

“The delivery infrastructure will totally change shopping as we know it today,” AHA chief executive Maron Kristofersson told the Washington Post. “Now that we have seen this system in operation we realize that the most important part is the aviation safety and the autonomous control of the drone.”

Flytrex has been awarded permission by the civil aviation authority of Iceland to create commercial drone flights.

The drones used by AHA are a modified DJI Matrice 600 Hexacopter, with a cargo compartment about the size of a mailbox, designed for transporting packages up to 3kg. The drones can fly up to six miles, which is ample for the types of deliveries AHA expects the technology to be undertaking.

They will be used alongside AHA’s traditional car and bike-based delivery system, but will be implemented where the company is required to deliver to a challenging locations and it will be faster to deliver by air rather than road vehicle.

“If you look at our city, it’s full of bays and difficult traffic routes. Delivery from point A to B — even though it might only be two kilometers [about one mile] by air — might mean that you have to drive seven kilometers [about four miles] and it could take you up to 20 minutes to drive that distance,” said the company. “For that particular route, I think we can save 20 minutes of work per delivery, and … that means a huge benefit for us.”