Urban-Air Port® chosen as a winner of the Future Flight Challenge; to launch ‘pop up’ eVTOL aircraft hub in Coventry this year

Urban-Air Port® Air-One® has been select­ed as a win­ner of the UK Government’s Future Flight Chal­lenge to devel­op avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture and sys­tems. The com­pa­ny has received a £1.2 mil­lion grant and plans to launch Air-One® — the world-first, ful­ly-oper­a­tional ‘pop up’ urban air­port and charg­ing hub for eVTOL air­craft in Coven­try lat­er this year.

Urban-Air Port® devel­ops ful­ly autonomous inno­v­a­tive zero emis­sion infra­struc­ture for future air mobil­i­ty. The ambi­tious Air-One® project will bring indus­try, gov­ern­ment and the pub­lic togeth­er to demon­strate how to unlock the poten­tial of sus­tain­able urban air mobil­i­ty to reduce con­ges­tion, cut air pol­lu­tion and holis­ti­cal­ly decar­bonise trans­port while pro­vid­ing seam­less pas­sen­ger jour­neys and deliv­er­ies.

Air-One® will be unveiled dur­ing Coventry’s UK city of cul­ture cel­e­bra­tions in 2021 and con­tin­ue to form part of the Com­mon­wealth Games in 2022.

Ricky Sand­hu, Founder and Exec­u­tive Chair­man of Urban-Air Port®, said: “Cars need roads. Trains need rails. Planes need air­ports. eVTOLs will need Urban Air Ports. Over a hun­dred years ago, the world’s first com­mer­cial flight took off, cre­at­ing the mod­ern con­nect­ed world. Urban Air Port® will improve con­nec­tiv­i­ty across our cities, boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and help the UK to take the lead in a whole new clean glob­al econ­o­my.”

“Fly­ing cars used to be a futur­is­tic flight of fan­cy. Air-One® will bring clean urban air trans­port to the mass­es and unleash a new air­borne world of zero emis­sion mobil­i­ty.”

The phys­i­cal foot­print of an Urban-Air Port® is 60 per cent small­er than a tra­di­tion­al heli­port and using inno­v­a­tive mod­u­lar con­struc­tion, the sites can be installed in a mat­ter of days. They emit net zero car­bon emis­sions and can be oper­at­ed com­plete­ly off-grid, mean­ing they do not always have to rely on a suit­able grid con­nec­tion.  

The com­pa­ny plans to devel­op more than 200 sites in the next five years, and cities in the UK and across the world have already expressed an inter­est in installing an Urban Air Port®. Hav­ing secured fund­ing for Air-One®, Urban-Air Port® is now in dis­cus­sions with investors to sup­port its rapid com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and glob­al growth.

And to fur­ther pub­lic under­stand­ing and accep­tance of the new tech­nol­o­gy,– the Air-One® site in Coven­try will show­case live demon­stra­tions of remote air­craft com­mand and con­trol, charg­ing / refu­elling and car­go and pas­sen­ger load­ing for manned and unmanned eVTOL air­craft oper­at­ing in three key mar­kets: pas­sen­ger air taxi ser­vices, autonomous logis­tics and dis­as­ter emer­gency man­age­ment.

The Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Divi­sion of Hyundai Motor Group has also cho­sen Urban-Air Port® as its pri­or­i­ty infra­struc­ture part­ner to sup­port the glob­al growth of this new sec­tor, with the South Kore­an com­pa­ny plan­ning to cre­ate its own eVTOL air­craft and com­mer­cialise by 2028.

Pamela Cohn, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer for the Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Divi­sion of Hyundai Motor Group, said: “As we advance our eVTOL air­craft pro­gramme, devel­op­ment of sup­port­ing infra­struc­ture is imper­a­tive. Air-One® is a unique project that is set to help lead the way in devel­op­ing a robust, acces­si­ble and inter­modal infra­struc­ture net­work for future mobil­i­ty.

“We are excit­ed to be part of this part­ner­ship in the UK, and look for­ward to work­ing togeth­er to cre­ate com­mu­ni­ty impact and oppor­tu­ni­ty through safe, afford­able, and human-cen­tred mobil­i­ty solu­tions.”

Urban-Air Port® pro­vides an inte­grat­ed approach to the decar­bon­i­sa­tion of cities. It is designed to sup­port any eVTOL air­craft and com­ple­ments oth­er modes of sus­tain­able trans­port as a hub for EVs, elec­tric bus­es, scoot­ers or oth­er vehi­cles.

The mod­u­lar design enables Urban Air Ports® to be eas­i­ly dis­man­tled and moved to alter­na­tive sites, as the air-mobil­i­ty sec­tor devel­ops. This design also means the sites are ide­al for dis­as­ter emer­gency man­age­ment. Urban Air Ports® can rapid­ly deploy drones and oth­er eVTOL to col­lect and trans­port emer­gency sup­plies, equip­ment and peo­ple where need­ed.

Mal­loy Aero­nau­tics, a lead­ing UK-based drone devel­op­er, logis­tics and engi­neer­ing com­pa­ny, is Urban Air Port’s® UK drone air­craft part­ner. The company’s large car­go drones will be demon­strat­ed at the Air-One® site.

Ori­ol Badia, CEO of Mal­loy Aero­nau­tics, added: “It is a key goal for Mal­loy – to intro­duce unmanned air logis­tics into an urban envi­ron­ment and merge it with sup­port­ing infra­struc­ture that is flex­i­ble and resilient, host­ing intel­li­gent oper­at­ing sys­tems and state of the art inno­va­tion.

“Air-One® pro­vides the abil­i­ty to ser­vice mul­ti­ple trans­port require­ments of the future – from dis­as­ter relief to essen­tial and every­day sup­plies for cit­i­zens across the UK. These are tru­ly excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties espe­cial­ly with a strong part­ner­ship between Mal­loy and Urban-Air Port® – thus uni­fy­ing ser­vice­abil­i­ty and oper­abil­i­ty, form­ing a turnkey prod­uct.”