DHL-Sinotrans, an international express company, has signed a strategic partnership deal with Ehang, an intelligent autonomous aerial vehicle company, to jointly launch a fully automated and intelligent drone delivery solution in China.

The solution is to tackle last-mile delivery challenges in urban areas of China.

The solution took its inaugural flight to a DHL-Sinotrans customer on Thursday, making DHL the first international express company to launch such an initiative in the Chinese market.

The customized route, which has been exclusively created for DHL-Sinotrans, between the Songshanhu area and the DHL-Sinotrans service center in the Liaobu township of Dongguan in Guangdong province, covers a distance of approximately eight kilometers.

It can help reduce one-way delivery time from 40 to eight minutes and cut costs by up to 80 percent per delivery.

"Using the most advanced unmanned aerial vehicle in Ehang's newly-launched Falcon series, which feature the highest level of intelligence, automatic, safety and reliability, the intelligent delivery solution overcomes the complex road conditions and traffic congestion common to urban areas," said Derrick Xiong, Ehang co-founder and CEO of Ehang Tianyu, an Ehang subsidiary focusing on intelligent deliveries.