Jaunt and Vertiko Sign LOI for Proposed 10-Drone Cargo Fleet in Canada

Jaunt, the Cana­di­an sub­sidiary of AIRO Group Hold­ings, has signed a non-bind­ing let­ter of intent (LOI) with Ver­tiko Mobil­ité cov­er­ing the pro­posed pur­chase of 10 JC250 heavy-lift car­go drones and the devel­op­ment of autonomous logis­tics oper­a­tions in Cana­da.

The pro­posed deploy­ment has an esti­mat­ed val­ue of $15–20 mil­lion, based on Jaunt’s cur­rent indica­tive pric­ing. How­ev­er, the LOI is not a firm order, requires no deposit and can be ter­mi­nat­ed by either par­ty. A pur­chase would depend on a defin­i­tive agree­ment, with final pric­ing still sub­ject to nego­ti­a­tion.

The ini­tial focus would be car­go ser­vices for First Nations com­mu­ni­ties in Que­bec, along­side fur­ther oper­a­tional test­ing of the JC250. One pro­posed appli­ca­tion is an aer­i­al logis­tics cor­ri­dor con­nect­ing the Atikamekw com­mu­ni­ty of Man­awan with the Joli­ette region.

The project is intend­ed to improve access to essen­tial goods, med­ical sup­plies and oth­er car­go in remote com­mu­ni­ties where road trans­port can be cost­ly, slow or affect­ed by geog­ra­phy and weath­er.

The JC250 is a ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (VTOL) unmanned air­craft designed for heavy-lift car­go oper­a­tions. Its abil­i­ty to take off and land with­out a con­ven­tion­al run­way is intend­ed to sup­port deliv­er­ies to loca­tions with lim­it­ed avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture, while its for­ward-flight capa­bil­i­ty is designed for region­al trans­port.

Mirabel, near Mon­tre­al, is expect­ed to serve as the partnership’s main logis­tics hub. The com­pa­nies plan to use facil­i­ties oper­at­ed by FBO Heli­bel­lule as a base for test­ing, oper­a­tional devel­op­ment and poten­tial car­go ser­vices. The loca­tion also pro­vides access to Jaunt’s devel­op­ment facil­i­ties and the wider Mon­tre­al aero­space sec­tor.

Beyond the ini­tial com­mu­ni­ty-focused oper­a­tions, Jaunt and Ver­tiko intend to explore routes con­nect­ing busi­ness­es, dis­tri­b­u­tion points and com­mu­ni­ties across the Greater Mon­tre­al region. Their longer-term con­cept includes an autonomous car­go cor­ri­dor between Wind­sor, Ontario, and Mon­tre­al, although no imple­men­ta­tion sched­ule or route details have been announced.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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