Volocopter partners with SITA on IT infrastructure for vertiports

Volo­copter and SITA, the world’s lead­ing IT provider to the air trans­port indus­try, have entered a part­ner­ship, with SITA select­ed as Volocopter’s pre­ferred dig­i­tal and IT sys­tems part­ner for ver­ti­ports.

SITA has become the lat­est investor to join Volocopter’s Series E fund­ing round, and the VoloC­i­ty elec­tric air taxi will oper­ate routes in con­gest­ed megac­i­ties to offer future pas­sen­gers sta­ble, qui­et, and safe flights.

Flights can be hailed via des­ig­nat­ed board­ing points or ver­ti­ports, with SITA deploy­ing its exper­tise in air trans­port for the emerg­ing UAM indus­try, devel­op­ing new oper­at­ing stan­dards and a dig­i­tal-first pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence.

SITA’s port­fo­lio includes a range of IT solu­tions, includ­ing air­port man­age­ment and oper­a­tions, pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions, flight and air­craft oper­a­tions, bag­gage pro­cess­ing, and bor­der man­age­ment.

Volocopter’s VoloIQ dig­i­tal oper­at­ing sys­tem con­nects all part­ners, and there­fore enables a dig­i­tal-first approach that will trans­late to end-to-end pas­sen­ger air trans­porta­tion expe­ri­ences. This cloud-based sys­tem is in the process of being cer­ti­fied by the rel­e­vant avi­a­tion author­i­ties.

Chris­t­ian Bauer, Chief Com­mer­cial Offi­cer at Volo­copter, said: “Volo­copter con­sis­tent­ly takes a holis­tic ecosys­tem approach, work­ing in con­cert with our part­ners with whom we are set­ting up for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.

“This involves estab­lish­ing the req­ui­site infra­struc­ture, main­te­nance, flight oper­a­tions, IT, and cus­tomer ser­vices. SITA is a lead­ing IT provider for air­ports and air­lines, and we believe there is no bet­ter part­ner to make our seam­less trav­el expe­ri­ence pos­si­ble.”

Ser­gio Colel­la, SITA Pres­i­dent for Europe, added: “Volo­copter is in pole posi­tion to make elec­tric air taxis a real­i­ty, ben­e­fit­ing from its first-mover advan­tage. At SITA, we will play a key role in deliv­er­ing this new dig­i­tal UAM world and defin­ing a seam­less, smarter approach to air trav­el in a city envi­ron­ment. Togeth­er we will turn the the­o­ry into prac­tice as ear­ly as 2024 when we expect the first com­mer­cial eVTOLs to take flight.”

SITA is the air trans­port indus­try’s IT provider, deliv­er­ing solu­tions for air­lines, air­ports, air­craft and gov­ern­ments. With around 2,500 cus­tomers, SITA’s solu­tions dri­ve oper­a­tional effi­cien­cies at more than 1,000 air­ports while deliv­er­ing the promise of the con­nect­ed air­craft to cus­tomers of 17,000 air­craft glob­al­ly.

SITA also pro­vides tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions that help more than 70 gov­ern­ments strike the bal­ance of secure bor­ders and seam­less trav­el. Its com­mu­ni­ca­tions net­work bridges 45% of the air trans­port community’s data exchange.

SITA is 100% owned by the indus­try and dri­ven by its needs. It is one of the most inter­na­tion­al­ly diverse com­pa­nies, pro­vid­ing ser­vices in over 200 coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries.

Last month, Volo­copter announced that Sum­it­o­mo Cor­po­ra­tion has invest­ed in its Series E Fund­ing round, and will also become a key strate­gic part­ner for entry into ser­vice in the Japan­ese mar­ket start­ing in 2025.

Volo­copter in Japan Series E invest­ment and reg­u­la­to­ry path­way set