Vports to Create First International AAM corridor between Syracuse, NY and Québec

VPorts has announced the first inter­na­tion­al elec­tric AAM cor­ri­dor between New York’s Syra­cuse Han­cock Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and VPorts’ ver­ti­port at Mirabel in Québec, Cana­da.

This cor­ri­dor will fos­ter the estab­lish­ment of an AAM ecosys­tem that will pro­vide a plat­form for full com­mer­cial car­go trans­port oper­a­tions using eVTOL heli­copter-sized drones. The first eVTOL air­craft test flights are planned for 2023.

VPorts, NUAIR, Syra­cuse Han­cock Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, Aéro Mon­tréal, Innovitech, the Unmanned Aer­i­al Sys­tem Cen­tre of Excel­lence (Alma), and Heli­jet Inter­na­tion­al, have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) to estab­lish inter­na­tion­al elec­tric AAM cor­ri­dors between Québec (Cana­da) and the Unit­ed States.

VPorts pres­i­dent and founder Dr Fethi Chebil remarked: “The aim of the cor­ri­dors is to build an AAM ecosys­tem that will pro­vide a plat­form for full com­mer­cial car­go trans­port oper­a­tions using eVTOLs.

“They will allow the consortium’s mem­bers to explore all aspects of AAM, includ­ing goods trans­porta­tion, charg­ing readi­ness, stake­hold­er man­age­ment, busi­ness cas­es, secu­ri­ty and safe­ty pro­to­cols, social accept­abil­i­ty and urban inte­gra­tion of infra­struc­ture and oper­a­tions.

“Many com­pa­nies and orga­ni­za­tions rapid­ly invest­ing in these relat­ed new capa­bil­i­ties are present in Cen­tral New York State today with good prospects of growth, and oth­ers are like­ly to be attract­ed to the region.”

New York State Gov­er­nor Kathy Hochul recent­ly announced that the state will be pro­vid­ing NUAIR with an addi­tion­al $21 mil­lion in “Cen­tral New York Ris­ing” Upstate Revi­tal­iza­tion Ini­tia­tive fund­ing that will allow NUAIR to oper­ate an uncrewed air­craft sys­tems (UAS) and AAM indus­try hub in Cen­tral New York and the Mohawk Val­ley.

U.S: FAA Approves New York’s 50-Mile Drone Cor­ri­dor for UAS Oper­a­tions After USD113 Mil­lion State Invest­ment

The addi­tion­al fund­ing will allow for crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture to be test­ed and deployed, state agency adop­tion of UAS, AAM devel­op­ment, and asso­ci­at­ed work­force devel­op­ment.

NUAIR con­tin­ues to be an indus­try cat­a­lyst due to its unique capa­bil­i­ties, years of expe­ri­ence, and proven safe­ty record through thou­sands of advanced UAS oper­a­tions.

Empire State Devel­op­ment Pres­i­dent Hope Knight said: “New York’s state-of-the-art drone cor­ri­dor fur­ther ele­vates our glob­al lead­er­ship in this evolv­ing mar­ket for cut­ting-edge UAS tech­nol­o­gy.

“Our ongo­ing invest­ment and focus on drone and advanced air mobil­i­ty cor­ri­dor oper­a­tions will con­tin­ue to strength­en and grow the statewide econ­o­my, espe­cial­ly in the Cen­tral New York and Mohawk Val­ley regions, for gen­er­a­tions to come.”

NUAIR CEO Ken Stew­art added: “There are cur­rent­ly over 5,000 under­uti­lized region­al air­ports through­out the Unit­ed States, and this will help lay the foun­da­tion for region­al air mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions, assist­ing with car­go deliv­er­ies and strength­en­ing Unit­ed States sup­ply chains.

“NUAIR will build on the foun­da­tion of its 50-mile UAS Cor­ri­dor, and UAS traf­fic man­age­ment sys­tems and our work with NASA on Ver­ti­port Automa­tion Sys­tems to inte­grate this next gen­er­a­tion air­craft into America’s Nation­al Air­space Sys­tem.”

Syra­cuse Han­cock Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (SYR) aspires to recon­nect com­mu­ni­ties pre­vi­ous­ly cut off from eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties due to the lack of a tra­di­tion­al trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture.

Syra­cuse Region­al Air­port Author­i­ty exec­u­tive direc­tor Jason Ter­reri con­clud­ed: “This under­tak­ing aligns with our goal to elec­tri­fy trans­porta­tion-relat­ed tech­nol­o­gy at SYR, one of the first air­ports in the US to include UAS/AAM infra­struc­ture plan­ning.”