Canada: VPorts to create AAM Infrastructure Network in Quebec and flight corridors to U.S

It is a busy week for Canada’s ambi­tious and lead­ing Ver­ti­port and Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) Infra­struc­ture com­pa­ny, VPorts, with two dif­fer­ent press releas­es in two days.

The first announce­ment: The com­pa­ny is to cre­ate an AAM Mobil­i­ty Net­work to con­nect major regions of Que­bec by 2030. The aim is for this net­work to extend to all major province regions, pro­vid­ing a sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion solu­tion via eVTOL air­craft.

Dr. Fethi Chebil

Dr. Fethi Chebil, Founder and Pres­i­dent of VPorts, com­ment­ed, “We are excit­ed to build the first ver­ti­port net­work con­nect­ing all Que­bec regions, includ­ing remote com­mu­ni­ties that are not ade­quate­ly served by sur­face trans­porta­tion or under­served by avi­a­tion.”

He con­tin­ued, “Sim­i­lar to heli­ports, these ver­ti­ports will be designed for take-off and land­ing by eVTOLs. Our ini­tial growth strat­e­gy is based on region­al trans­porta­tion of goods and effi­cient move­ment of patients, organs for trans­plants and med­ical equip­ment.”

The release states, “VPorts’ Que­bec net­work will focus on loca­tions that opti­mise mul­ti­modal trans­porta­tion con­nec­tiv­i­ty, includ­ing Mirabel Heli­co, St-Hubert Air­port and major agglom­er­a­tions such as Que­bec City, Ottawa- Gatineau, Sher­brooke, Drum­mondville, Mont-Trem­blant, Trois-Riv­ières, Ste-Marie de Beauce and Riv­ière-du-Loup, as well as the net­work of air­ports in the north region of Québec oper­at­ed by Trans­ports Québec.”

Dr Chebil explained, “Log­i­cal­ly, the first places to set up ver­ti­ports are exist­ing heli­pads and air­ports. Indus­tri­al and com­mer­cial areas are also excel­lent options to con­sid­er. We look for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Trans­port Cana­da, NAV CANADA, the Gov­ern­ment of Que­bec and munic­i­pal offi­cials on defin­ing safe­ty and secu­ri­ty reg­u­la­tions, flight cor­ri­dors, urban inte­gra­tion and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment for this impor­tant under­tak­ing that will ben­e­fit our com­mu­ni­ties.’’ Each ver­ti­port is to be equipped with elec­tric charg­ing sta­tions and hydro­gen fuel sta­tions for hybrid air­craft.

To cre­ate the first ver­ti­port ecosys­tem in Que­bec, VPorts has part­nered with oth­er com­pa­nies includ­ing NUAR (inte­gra­tion of air traf­fic man­age­ment); UAM Geo­mat­ics (geospa­tial map­ping and ver­ti­port net­work loca­tion map­ping); Innovitech (stake­hold­er man­age­ment strat­e­gy focused on social accep­tance) and AEd­i­fi­ca (archi­tec­tur­al con­cepts).

Accord­ing to a socio-eco­nom­ic impact study, VPorts’ AAM infra­struc­ture net­work could gen­er­ate USD6.5 bil­lion in eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits for Que­bec by 2045. The com­pa­ny aims to cre­ate over 1,000 high-qual­i­ty direct jobs in the province and hopes to work close­ly with local uni­ver­si­ties and research cen­tres to cre­ate the most advanced tech­nol­o­gy required for its Ver­ti­port Oper­a­tion Con­trol Cen­tre (VOCC), whilst prepar­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of deci­sion-mak­ers, who could help fur­ther devel­op AAM infra­struc­ture in Québec and around the world.

The aim is for VPorts’ VOCC to have a capac­i­ty to man­age air traf­fic con­trol inte­gra­tion and set up com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols between eVTOLs and ver­ti­ports as well as pro­vide “data relat­ed to resource man­age­ment, ensur­ing an effi­cient, time­ly deci­sion-mak­ing process for all air­craft tak­ing off from or fly­ing to any ver­ti­port in the net­work and around the world.”

Incor­po­rat­ing state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy, the VOCC will also enable the com­pa­ny to cen­tralise by hav­ing the capac­i­ty to man­age non-flight-relat­ed oper­a­tions, includ­ing car­go, per­son­nel and air­side man­age­ment, com­mer­cial activ­i­ties, secu­ri­ty screen­ing, cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, ground han­dling and air­craft charg­ing.

The sec­ond announce­ment is even more ambi­tious, where VPorts aim to cre­ate an AAM cor­ri­dor between Que­bec and the U.S.

On Wednes­day, the com­pa­ny signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) with a con­sor­tium of inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing Aéro Mon­tréal, North­east UAS Air­space Inte­gra­tion Research Alliance (NUAIR), Innovitech, the Unmanned Aer­i­al Sys­tem Cen­tre of Excel­lence (Alma) and Heli­jet Inter­na­tion­al. Ini­tial tri­als are planned for next year.

Dr Fethi Chebil com­ment­ed, “These Quebec‑U.S. inter­na­tion­al cor­ri­dors will con­tribute to the devel­op­ment, inte­gra­tion, and social accept­abil­i­ty of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty.” The sec­ond release states, “The aim of the cor­ri­dors is to build an AAM ecosys­tem that will pro­vide a plat­form for full com­mer­cial car­go trans­port oper­a­tions using eVTOLs.”

It con­tin­ues, “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. The ini­tia­tive could also be repli­cat­ed in oth­er coun­tries.”

Suzanne Benoît

Suzanne M. Benoît, Pres­i­dent of Aéro Mon­tréal, Quebec’s aero­space clus­ter, remarked, “This project is aligned with Aéro Montréal’s mis­sion of enhanc­ing the Que­bec aero­space clus­ter and posi­tion­ing it as an inter­na­tion­al leader.”

The con­sor­tium intends to work close­ly with Trans­port Cana­da, NAV CANADA and the U.S. Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA). All eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­ers will have access to the cor­ri­dors to con­duct flight test­ing.

Back­ground

VPorts aims to build and oper­ate 1,500 ver­ti­ports across five con­ti­nents by 2045. Its infra­struc­ture will be inte­grat­ed into local and glob­al air mobil­i­ty ecosys­tems cen­tral­is­ing its oper­a­tions and lever­ag­ing the most advanced tech­nol­o­gy. VPorts’ head office is locat­ed in Mirabel, Que­bec.

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(pics: VPorts)