Middle East: “Skyports Infrastructure, LODD Unveil Vertiport Design Concept for Abu Dhabi AAM Network”

Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture and LODD, an Abu Dhabi based com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in AI-pow­ered drone tech­nol­o­gy and autonomous aer­i­al logis­tics, unveiled this week ver­ti­port designs to be devel­oped across three strate­gic loca­tions, reports a press release. 

The release explains, “The project aims to enhance air mobil­i­ty solu­tions, inte­grat­ing new infra­struc­ture into Abu Dhabi’s trans­porta­tion net­work to accel­er­ate car­go and pas­sen­ger move­ment and improve logis­ti­cal effi­cien­cy in the Unit­ed Arab Emirate’s cap­i­tal.”

The announce­ment was made dur­ing the ICAO Glob­al Imple­men­ta­tion Sup­port Sym­po­sium (GISS) 2025, held in Abu Dhabi (Feb­ru­ary 10th-12th). Dur­ing this event, the two par­ties signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU). 

The devel­op­ment of the ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture is to con­nect key sites with­in Abu Dhabi, enabling con­nec­tiv­i­ty between oth­er Emi­rates. The net­work will enable the launch and scale up of eVTOL oper­a­tions and autonomous aer­i­al logis­tics.

Rashid Al Man­nai, CEO of LODD, empha­sised, “Build­ing ver­ti­ports rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant step toward inte­grat­ing uncrewed aer­i­al mobil­i­ty into Abu Dhabi’s pub­lic trans­porta­tion sys­tem. These designs are the result of exten­sive fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies, fruit­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion with stake­hold­ers, and a clear vision for scal­able air mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions.”

He con­tin­ued, “Abu Dhabi serves as a glob­al mod­el for air mobil­i­ty due to its pro­gres­sive sys­tems. These ver­ti­ports will lay the foun­da­tion for a future-ready air mobil­i­ty net­work, sup­port­ing both com­mer­cial eVTOL pas­sen­ger ser­vices and autonomous aer­i­al logis­tics.”

(left to right: Oved Shalem, CTO, LODD, Rashid Almanai, CEO, LODD, Rob DiCas­tri, Daniel O’Neill, UAE Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, Sky­ports, Dun­can Walk­er, CEO, Sky­ports)

Both par­ties’ pro­vid­ed insight into air­space eval­u­a­tion, reg­u­la­to­ry analy­sis and fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies for three key loca­tions in Abu Dhabi:- 

: Al Bateen 

: Yas Island 

: Khal­i­fa Port 

More than 34 stake­hold­ers were involved and 14 poten­tial sites have been assessed, cul­mi­nat­ing in a detailed fea­si­bil­i­ty study, sub­mit­ted to the Abu Dhabi gov­ern­ment.

Dun­can Walk­er, CEO of Sky­ports, com­ment­ed: “The unveil­ing of these designs and sign­ing of an MOU, high­lights the progress being made to define and devel­op Abu Dhabi’s AAM infra­struc­ture net­work. As our ver­ti­port con­cept designs show, car­go is just as impor­tant to Abu Dhabi’s AAM future as pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions.”

He added, “The devel­op­ment of a com­pre­hen­sive pas­sen­ger and car­go net­work will enable us to bring wide rang­ing ben­e­fits to the Emi­rate, for both peo­ple and busi­ness­es.”

Al Bateen ver­ti­port con­cept

The release con­cludes, “The UAE con­tin­ues to strength­en its glob­al lead­er­ship in adopt­ing cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence appli­ca­tions, while launch­ing ini­tia­tives to sup­port the devel­op­ment of a knowl­edge-based and sus­tain­able econ­o­my. With the sup­port of com­pa­nies like LODD and Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture, the UAE is solid­i­fy­ing its posi­tion as an inno­va­tion hub for busi­ness in the region and beyond.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://skyports.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lodd-autonomous

(All images — cred­it: Skyports/LODD)

(Top graph­ic image: Yas Island Ver­ti­port Con­cept)

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