Abu Dhabi Airports Signs MOU with Groupe ADP to Accelerate AAM

Abu Dhabi Air­ports has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) with French engi­neer­ing and oper­a­tions firm, Groupe ADP, to explore and accel­er­ate the poten­tial of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) in Abu Dhabi, reports TLME News Ser­vice.

This strate­gic col­lab­o­ra­tion was sealed at the Abu Dhabi Air Expo last week between Jamal Salem Al Dha­heri, MD and CEO of Abu Dhabi Air­ports, and Philippe Mar­tinet, MD of Groupe ADP Air­port Ser­vices. 

Under the agree­ment, the part­ner­ship will engage in the joint plan­ning, design, devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion of ground infra­struc­ture for AAM in Abu Dhabi, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions with stake­hold­ers, a fea­si­bil­i­ty study and mar­ket assess­ment to devel­op the indus­try roadmap. 

Philippe Mar­tinet and Jamal Salem Al Dha­heri Sign Agree­ment

Al Dha­heri com­ment­ed, “This agree­ment is a tes­ta­ment to our com­mit­ment to lead Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty by col­lab­o­rat­ing with part­ners to deliv­er inno­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy that dri­ves effi­cien­cy, con­ve­nience and most impor­tant­ly, sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

Philippe Mar­tinet added, “With our hands-on expe­ri­ence in the Paris region today, and our deep under­stand­ing of the indus­try, its infra­struc­ture and oper­a­tional chal­lenges, we will be sup­port­ing Abu Dhabi Air­ports in lay­ing the ground for AAM ser­vice imple­men­ta­tion.”

As more and more coun­tries enter the green avi­a­tion rev­o­lu­tion, Abu Dhabi is also embrac­ing the drone indus­try.

Last month news broke that drone deliv­ery will soon be a real­i­ty for res­i­dents, when a tri­al pro­gram trans­port­ing food and health­care begins in the city. The craft will fly short dis­tances drop­ping off vital med­ical sup­plies, fresh food and doc­u­ments to spec­i­fied Emi­rates Post sites.

Parcels and doc­u­ments will be lat­er car­ried by drones over longer dis­tances in the emi­rate as part of the ini­tia­tive by Maq­ta Gate­way, the dig­i­tal arm of AD Ports Group, Emi­rates Post and Sky­Go, an aer­i­al logis­tics provider. The aim is to assess demand and gauge the ben­e­fits of deliv­er­ing small to medi­um-sized pack­ages using drones while pro­vid­ing real-time track­ing.

Offi­cials have stat­ed, details of the tri­al run will be released at the end of the year with plans for a com­mer­cial launch in 2023.

Drone Demon­stra­tion Over Abu Dhabi Desert

Noura Al Dha­heri, CEO of the dig­i­tal clus­ter at Abu Dhabi Ports Group, com­ment­ed, “Drone ser­vices could enable greater con­ve­nience and faster deliv­ery times for cus­tomers across Abu Dhabi, while ensur­ing a pos­i­tive envi­ron­men­tal impact.” Adding, “Maq­ta Gate­way is keen on col­lab­o­rat­ing in projects that would trans­form trade and logis­tics.”

Abdul­la Al Ashram, Group CEO of Emi­rates Post Group, said, “By sup­port­ing this project, we are con­fi­dent that we can alle­vi­ate road con­ges­tion and reduce fuel con­sump­tion in last-mile deliv­er­ies.”

And Mohammed Al Dha­heri, CEO of Sky­Go, added, “This is yet anoth­er step in the process of trans­form­ing glob­al trade to becom­ing more effi­cient, sus­tain­able, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble.”

Mean­while, there have been a num­ber of drone demon­stra­tions in the UAE to dis­play the advan­tages of deploy­ing them in tasks such as fire­fight­ing, mon­i­tor­ing the weath­er, sur­vey­ing and agri­cul­ture includ­ing the plant­i­ng of seeds.

In Feb­ru­ary, a fleet of drones took to the sky over the Abu Dhabi desert to show­case advanced aer­i­al tech­nolo­gies . The live demon­stra­tion, held at Tilal Swai­han, was part of the Unmanned Sys­tems Exhi­bi­tion and Con­fer­ence being held in the cap­i­tal.

The event showed the abil­i­ty of aer­i­al drones “swarm­ing togeth­er” along­side unmanned light air­craft from var­i­ous major man­u­fac­tur­ers. These includ­ed craft pro­duced by Gar­moosha and a mini-heli­copter-style Blow­fish A3 man­u­fac­tured by Chi­na’s Zhuhai Ziyan. The Blow­fish, in par­tic­u­lar, dis­played excel­lent manoeu­vra­bil­i­ty and con­trol for the oper­a­tor.

The Feb­ru­ary exhi­bi­tion focused on the defence, envi­ron­men­tal, civ­il and human­i­tar­i­an ben­e­fits of unmanned sys­tems and was attend­ed by region­al gov­ern­ment del­e­ga­tions and indus­try, mil­i­tary and civil­ian author­i­ties from across the globe.

(News Source: https://www.transportandlogisticsme.com/)

(News Source: https://www.thenationalnews.com/uk/)

(Top images: Abu Dhabi Air­ports)