AirAsia and Skyports partner to develop air taxi vertiport in Malaysia

Sky­ports and AirA­sia have signed a let­ter of intent to devel­op an air taxi infra­struc­ture in Malaysia, an impor­tant step in estab­lish­ing a ful­ly oper­a­tional ver­ti­port net­work in the coun­try.

Part­ner­ships between tra­di­tion­al avi­a­tion play­ers and advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) spe­cial­ists are essen­tial in devel­op­ing a prac­ti­cal, stud­ied and inte­grat­ed net­work of ver­ti­ports.

AirA­sia is also active­ly involved in AAM in Malaysia where in the past year alone, it announced plans to lease 100 Ver­ti­cal Aero­space VX4 eVTOL air­craft from Avolon, launched its drone train­ing pro­gramme, and most recent­ly, extend­ed drone-relat­ed train­ing to the high-tech­nol­o­gy relat­ed sec­tors.

The part­ner­ship will draw on AirAsia’s avi­a­tion exper­tise and expe­ri­ence, as well as its on-ground mar­ket knowl­edge and net­works, while Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture brings its glob­al port­fo­lio of design­ing and build­ing infra­struc­ture for eVTOL pas­sen­ger air­craft.

Sky­ports Infrastructure’s work is also instru­men­tal in advanc­ing reg­u­la­to­ry devel­op­ment across mar­kets, through close col­lab­o­ra­tion with local reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies and stan­dards set­ting organ­i­sa­tions.

Ini­tial assess­ments will pri­ori­tise Kuala Lumpur, where the one-year part­ner­ship will focus on joint fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies for inte­grat­ing air taxi ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture, iden­ti­fy­ing poten­tial ver­ti­port sites, and devel­op­ing oper­a­tional require­ments and frame­works to imple­ment a ver­ti­port net­work in Malaysia.

AirA­sia Avi­a­tion Group chief safe­ty offi­cer and head of AAM Cap­tain Ling Liong Tien said: “Fol­low­ing the announce­ment of our ven­ture into the urban air taxi ser­vice ear­li­er this year, we have been work­ing around the clock to explore its fea­si­bil­i­ty in Malaysia.

“This part­ner­ship will accel­er­ate the review of the infra­struc­ture includ­ing VTOL plat­forms in the coun­try, as well as strength­en our poten­tial as a zero-emis­sions ultra-short-haul air trav­el provider in South­east Asia.”

Sky­ports Asia Pacif­ic head Yun-Yuan Tay said: “AirA­sia has rev­o­lu­tionised com­mer­cial air trav­el for the past two decades and we look for­ward to work­ing with Sky­ports which will put us ahead of the curve and shape the future of autonomous avi­a­tion in the region.

“AirA­sia is a pow­er­house air­line oper­a­tor that brings great syn­er­gy to our work at Sky­ports, and this part­ner­ship high­lights the steady progress of AAM devel­op­ment and inter­est in Malaysia and the wider APAC region.

“With AirA­sia, we will be able to take con­crete steps towards the real­i­sa­tion of a safe, effi­cient and ful­ly-inte­grat­ed air taxi net­work which brings real ben­e­fits to the peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties it serves.”

In May, Sky­ports and Park24, a Japan­ese park­ing lot and car shar­ing oper­a­tor, signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing to devel­op and inte­grate a ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture net­work in Japan.