“Inaugural Arizona AAM Summit Attracts Strong Turnout” 

The inau­gur­al Ari­zona Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) one-day Sum­mit, recent­ly held at ASU SkySong in Scotts­dale, Ari­zona, attract­ed over 160 atten­dees, includ­ing busi­ness lead­ers, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, edu­ca­tors and tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tors, reports a press release. 

The event was host­ed by Greater Phoenix Eco­nom­ic Coun­cil (GPEC), Hon­ey­well, Ari­zona Com­merce Author­i­ty (ACA), Ari­zona Tech­nol­o­gy Coun­cil (AZTC) and Lam­bert by LLYC. The agen­da fea­tured pan­el dis­cus­sions, pre­sen­ta­tions and a fire­side chat between Phoenix May­or Kate Gal­lego and Chris Cama­cho, the GPEC Pres­i­dent and CEO. 

This chat fea­tured Phoenix as a hub for avi­a­tion inno­va­tion, cit­ing Arizona’s favourable cli­mate, tech com­mu­ni­ty, skilled work­force and estab­lished aero­space cul­ture, as essen­tial ele­ments sup­port­ing a thriv­ing AAM indus­try. This was backed up by David Shill­i­day, VP and GM of Honeywell’s AAM busi­ness unit, who said, “Ari­zona is posi­tioned to lead in advanced air mobil­i­ty.”

Michelle Olson, the event organ­is­er, com­ment­ed, “The fact that so many influ­en­tial indus­try lead­ers trav­eled to Ari­zona to speak at this sum­mit under­scores Arizona’s sig­nif­i­cance in the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty indus­try.” 

She con­tin­ued, “Their pres­ence here demon­strates the state’s role as a poten­tial hub for AAM inno­va­tion and high­lights Arizona’s appeal in shap­ing the future of sus­tain­able and advanced avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies.”

Peter Irvine from the U.S Depart­ment of Transportation’s Inter­a­gency Work­ing Group offered the audi­ence insights about the nation­al strat­e­gy for AAM. Irvine, who has coor­di­nat­ed efforts among 22 fed­er­al agen­cies, pro­vid­ed an update on the strate­gic plan expect­ed to be revealed in Feb­ru­ary 2025. His pre­sen­ta­tion dis­cussed the imple­men­ta­tion of AAM that has already includ­ed exten­sive col­lab­o­ra­tion across gov­ern­ment lev­els, includ­ing cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, TSA, and com­mu­ni­ty out­reach.

The audi­ence had a diverse range of stake­hold­ers, from Chan­dler May­or Kevin Hartke, Buck­eye May­or Eric Osborn and Ari­zona Sen­a­tor Frank Car­roll to lead­ers in real estate, eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, avi­a­tion, and edu­ca­tion.

(Top image: Chris John­son of Archer Avi­a­tion along­side Mem­bers from Fer­rovial, Future Flight and Bris­tow Group, talks dur­ing a pan­el dis­cus­sion on AAM oper­a­tions)

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