ANA HOLDINGS (ANA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wingtra AG (Wingtra), a Swiss industrial drone manufacturer, to explore the deployment of wide-area surveying and inspection services across Japan, utilizing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) fixed-wing aircraft.

The initiative supports ANA HOLDINGS medium-term corporate strategy for FY2026-2028, which targets the launch of commercial drone services by 2027.

Through this collaboration, ANA aims to establish an advanced data observation service that combines its extensive aviation safety expertise with Wingtra's VTOL fixed-wing drone technology.

The partnership will enable efficient wide-area infrastructure inspections and rapid disaster assessments—tasks conventionally challenging for traditional drones.

The feasibility of the technology was demonstrated during a project at Mount Unzen-Fugen (Mizunashi River) in Nagasaki Prefecture.

The project surveyed and inspected erosion control facilities as part of a Nagasaki Prefecture subsidy project. Key collaborators in this initiative included Shimabara City, Y.N. Consult Co., Ltd., WorldLink & Company Co., Ltd., the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience (NIED) and Wingtra.

Following the successful demonstration, ANA is discussing a domestic sales agency agreement for Wingtra's latest drone, the WingtraRAY, while also evaluating the provision of drone flight operations services. Beyond aircraft distribution, the company aims to develop a comprehensive support system covering aircraft deployment and operations, pilot training and aircraft maintenance.

By leveraging its advanced aviation safety expertise, ANA is considering supporting the acquisition of "Class 1 Type Certification" — Japan's highest national safety standard for unmanned aircraft operations.

Through these efforts, ANA HD will accelerate the introduction of more advanced and extensive services, including future "Level 4" operations, enabling beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights over populated areas without visual observers.

"We are thrilled to team up with Wingtra to scale our drone solutions across the surveying and inspection landscape," said Yoshiaki Tsuda, executive vice president of ANA. "Combining Wingtra's innovation with our airline expertise allows us to provide robust solutions for Japan's infrastructure monitoring and disaster response."

Karsten Robbins, vice president of sales at Wingtra, said Japan represents a robust market with significant potential for industrial drone adoption, and we are eager to partner with ANA HD to accelerate this growth.

"ANA's expertise in safety and operational excellence makes it the ideal partner to expand the use of our high-precision VTOL fixed-wing solutions across multiple industries."