Skyports Infrastructure’s vertiport design for Dubai approved for development, four locations being considered

Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture has had its ver­ti­port design approved for devel­op­ment by His High­ness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Mak­toum of Dubai, at this year’s World Gov­ern­ment Sum­mit.

The vision for Dubai’s future air mobil­i­ty infra­struc­ture net­work was joint­ly pre­sent­ed by Dubai’s Roads and Trans­port Author­i­ty (RTA) and Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture at a closed pre­sen­ta­tion ahead of the start of the World Gov­ern­ment Sum­mit, an annu­al three-day event which brings togeth­er inter­na­tion­al gov­ern­ment offi­cials and busi­ness lead­ers.

Joby Avi­a­tion, which recent­ly became the first eVTOL air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er to com­plete the sec­ond stage in the FAA air­craft type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process, also joined RTA and Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture to pro­mote the oppor­tu­ni­ties by aer­i­al mobil­i­ty in Dubai.

Four ver­ti­port sites locat­ed near Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, Palm Jumeirah, Dubai Down­town and Dubai Mari­na, which are cur­rent­ly being con­sid­ered by Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture and RTA, were pre­sent­ed to a senior del­e­ga­tion which includ­ed Sheikh Mohammed and Crown Prince Sheikh Ham­dan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Mak­toum.

Dun­can Walk­er, CEO of Sky­ports, said: “We are hon­oured to have received such strong endorse­ment of our Dubai ver­ti­port vision from His High­ness Sheikh Mohammed. The appetite for tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion and infra­struc­ture expan­sion in Dubai makes it a huge­ly promis­ing envi­ron­ment for the launch of advanced air mobil­i­ty. We’re excit­ed to con­tin­ue work­ing with the RTA to make our joint vision of an inte­grat­ed ver­ti­port net­work a real­i­ty in 2026.”

The air mobil­i­ty expo­si­tion demon­strates the RTA and Sky­ports Infrastructure’s planned roadmap for devel­op­ing a ver­ti­port net­work in Dubai, includ­ing a con­cept for how future ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture may look and how it will inte­grate with exist­ing trans­porta­tion, such as the RTA’s Dubai Metro net­work and Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Ahmed Bahrozyan, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of The Pub­lic Trans­port Agency at RTA, said: “The RTA’s plan for aer­i­al taxis is in line with the Dubai Self-Dri­ving Trans­port Strat­e­gy, which aims to make 25 per cent of all trips in Dubai dri­ver­less by 2030. ‘

“The project aims to roll out a new mobil­i­ty ser­vice dri­ven by pio­neer­ing tech­nol­o­gy to ease the mobil­i­ty of indi­vid­u­als across urban areas in a safe, smooth, and sus­tain­able man­ner inte­grat­ed with the pub­lic trans­port net­work in Dubai.”

RTA pre­vi­ous­ly show­cased its autonomous aer­i­al taxi at the World Gov­ern­ment Sum­mit 2017. Also in the same year, the tri­al run was ini­ti­at­ed for the first test flight of an air taxi capa­ble of car­ry­ing two pas­sen­gers. The pur­pose of this project is to devel­op the nec­es­sary com­mer­cial and tech­ni­cal abil­i­ties to offer this inno­v­a­tive ser­vice in the emi­rate.

His High­ness was also briefed by Mat­tar Al Tay­er, Direc­tor-Gen­er­al and Chair­man of the Board of Exec­u­tive Direc­tors of RTA, on the lat­est updates to the aer­i­al taxi oper­a­tions project. He also pre­sent­ed an archi­tec­tur­al mod­el of Sky­ports’ ver­ti­port near Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Al Tay­er said: “Ver­ti­ports embody a rev­o­lu­tion­ary form of infra­struc­ture that encom­pass­es a range of facil­i­ties such as des­ig­nat­ed take-off and land­ing zones, a pas­sen­ger wait­ing area, secu­ri­ty pro­to­cols, and elec­tric charg­ing sta­tions.

“These sta­tions seam­less­ly inte­grate with oth­er modes of trans­porta­tion. The next step involves iden­ti­fy­ing excep­tion­al investors who are experts in build­ing the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture for the air mobil­i­ty indus­try.”

He added: “The RTA’s aer­i­al taxi ini­tia­tive aligns with the Dubai Self-Dri­ving Trans­port Strat­e­gy, aimed at trans­form­ing 25 per­cent of total mobil­i­ty jour­neys in Dubai into dri­ver­less jour­neys by 2030. The RTA is work­ing close­ly with the Dubai Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty and Dubai Air Nav­i­ga­tion Ser­vices to cre­ate a one-of-a-kind com­pre­hen­sive frame­work for the oper­a­tion of such vehi­cles in Dubai.

“This includes the devel­op­ment of leg­is­la­tion and set­ting clear spec­i­fi­ca­tions and stan­dards for vehi­cle oper­a­tors. RTA, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with its strate­gic part­ners, out­lines the flight paths for the vehi­cles, iden­ti­fies take-off and land­ing sites, and spec­i­fies the nec­es­sary equip­ment for safe and effi­cient oper­a­tions.”