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Skyports expands UK vertiport network with acquisition of London heliport located close to city’s Canary Wharf district

Sky­ports has announced the acqui­si­tion of a heli­port in east Lon­don, which is one of only two oper­a­tional in the city and with­in min­utes of the Canary Wharf busi­ness dis­trict.

The deal forms part of Sky­ports’ acqui­si­tion strat­e­gy in secur­ing, devel­op­ing and oper­at­ing a net­work of ver­ti­ports to enable the tran­si­tion to emis­sion-free avi­a­tion in the UK. The com­pa­ny fore­sees the launch of ful­ly-elec­tric com­mer­cial air taxis in the coun­try with­in the next few years and the heli­port site — pre­vi­ous­ly known as the Fal­con Heli­port — will form an inte­gral part of Sky­ports’ ground infra­struc­ture net­work.

Dami­an Kyse­ly, Head of Europe & Mid­dle East at Sky­ports, said: “This is an excit­ing moment for Sky­ports. The acqui­si­tion demon­strates our ambi­tion to deliv­er a net­work of oper­a­tional land­ing sites for eVTOLs and our com­mit­ment to mak­ing the UK a leader in de-car­bon­i­sa­tion of domes­tic avi­a­tion.

“The heli­port also pro­vides us with an impor­tant live oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment in which we can safe­ly devel­op and test our ver­ti­port sys­tems, col­lect oper­a­tional data and mature our ver­ti­port tech­nolo­gies.”

The heli­port will con­tin­ue its exist­ing oper­a­tions under the new name of ‘Sky­ports Lon­don Heli­port’, sole­ly serv­ing the exist­ing heli­copter mar­ket until the mid-2020s, by which point Sky­ports antic­i­pates repur­pos­ing and equip­ping the heli­port with facil­i­ties required to also enable the oper­a­tion of ful­ly-elec­tric eVTOL air­craft. Sky­ports has already start­ed using the heli­port for test­ing of its ver­ti­port sys­tems.

The tran­si­tion to eVTOL air­craft, which are qui­eter, green­er and cheap­er than tra­di­tion­al heli­copters, will unlock new routes from the heli­port to oth­er parts of Lon­don and the rest of the UK. Pas­sen­gers trav­el­ling from Canary Wharf will be able to hop on an eVTOL and reach all of London’s air­ports with­in 20 min­utes, or fly to Bris­tol in under 50 min­utes.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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