January Really Took Off for Drone Delivery Canada

The new year is taking off rapidly for Toronto-based Drone Delivery Canada. Over the past two weeks, the company made three major announcements.

On Jan. 30, DDC publicized new test flights for its latest cargo delivery drone, the Falcon. With a lifting capability of 50 pounds and a wingspan of 12 feet, the fixed-wing drone can travel up to 37 miles and is a larger design of the company’s Sparrow line

DDC CEO Tony Di Benedetto said:

“In response to market demand driven by the burgeoning e-commerce industry, our engineering team was given the task of building out our fleet of cargo drones to address the need for a multi-package payload compartment solution which is applicable in many different geographies. The Falcon is the newest edition to DDC’s fleet and meets this particular niche which is being requested by DDC’s customers.”

The Falcon has been in development for almost a year and has received approvals from Transport Canada to commence testing within Southern Ontario.

Earlier this month, DDC requested $12 million dollars from Transport Canada’s National Trade Corridors Fund to deploy DDC drone delivery to two remote locations within Canada’s northernmost territories of Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Transport Canada’s $2-billion fund empowers infrastructure projects to “help improve the flow of goods and people in Canada, increasing the flow of trade in and out of Canada and help Canada’s transportation system better adapt to new technologies and innovation.”

DDC’s request will be part of a larger overall $400 million initiative to improve safety and enhance development in the remote, northern territories.

On Jan. 24, DDC hired Staples veteran Michael Zahra as Senior Vice President of Operations and Strategy. Zahara previously worked as President of Staples Business Advantage Canada and was “responsible for oversight of the shipment of millions of products annually, from 10 distribution centers and a fleet of over 170 trucks nationally, with full profitability responsibility and revenues over $500 million,” Di Benedetto added.

“Mr. Zahra’s logistics, engineering, sales and cross-functional business acumen will make him an instrumental member of our team.”