Dubai Airshow: “Why The Middle East Could Dominate Future eVTOL and UAM Industry” 

The Dubai Air­show is almost upon us. Viewed as the largest and most impor­tant glob­al avi­a­tion event of its kind, the 18th edi­tion is sched­uled to take place from Novem­ber 13th-17th at the Dubai World Cen­tral (DWC), Al Mak­toum Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, reports a press release.

There will be more than 1,400 exhibitors; 180 air­craft on fly­ing and sta­t­ic dis­play; the return­ing Space Expe­ri­ence and CXO Pro­grammes, as well as the renowned start­up hub VISTA; 9 indus­try con­fer­ence tracks led by 300 or more speak­ers deliv­er­ing close to 80 hours of con­tent; all cov­er­ing the aero­space, space and defence indus­try includ­ing the rapid­ly grow­ing eVTOL and UAM mar­kets.

The release states, “The CPD-accred­it­ed con­fer­ences will bring togeth­er experts, lead­ers and stake­hold­ers to shape the future of aero­space with a focus on pri­or­i­ty top­ics such as Advanced Aer­i­al Mobil­i­ty, Sus­tain­abil­i­ty, Pas­sen­ger Expe­ri­ence, Air Traf­fic Man­age­ment, Diver­si­ty & Inclu­sion, Space, start-ups and men­tor­ing plat­form Vista, stu­dent-focused NextGen Lead­ers, along with the Air­wor­thi­ness & Safe­ty Con­fer­ence.”

Fly­ing Taxi and relat­ed-UAM glob­al com­pa­nies exhibit­ing include Archer, Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, Lil­i­um, Aut­oFlight, Ascen­dance, Jek­ta Sea­plane, Man­ta Air­craft, VoltAero, VPorts and Zuri. Drone and unmanned avi­a­tion-relat­ed com­pa­nies include Autel Robot­ics, Anra Tech­nolo­gies, ARC Aerosys­tems, NATS and Thales. Sur­pris­ing­ly, nei­ther EHang or Joby Avi­a­tion have tak­en a stand. The show’s pri­ma­ry con­fer­ence spon­sors include Lil­i­um.

A major theme at the Air­show is “explor­ing the future of avi­a­tion in the con­text of envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and to assess how air­lines, air­ports, and gov­ern­ments can sup­port renew­able fuels and ener­gy poli­cies.”

(Cred­it: Dubai Air­show)

In a recent evtolinsights.com inter­view with Mike Rowe, Pres­i­dent of Aero­space and Defence at Frost & Sul­li­van, a Con­sult­ing, Ana­lyt­ics and Research com­pa­ny, he explained that a report car­ried out for pri­vate clients in 2020, not only showed that Dubai is the top world city with “a propen­si­ty to adopt” fly­ing taxis, but that the Mid­dle East region will like­ly be lead­ing the glob­al UAM mar­ket by 2030.

There are var­i­ous rea­sons for this. 

A polit­i­cal deter­mi­na­tion by the region’s lead­er­ship; less build­ing restric­tions and red tape to cross than in the West; plen­ty of desert for the air­craft to fly over, decreas­ing poten­tial pop­u­lace injury from an eVTOL acci­dent; but above all, the area is becom­ing a grow­ing attrac­tion for glob­al busi­ness.

As the West con­tin­ues its decline with grow­ing debt moun­tains, increas­ing crime and civ­il unrest, the Mid­dle East offers a safe haven. In a recent report by www.numbeo.com, enti­tled ‘Top Ten Safest Cities’, four of the top 5 were from the Mid­dle East. These are Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Ajman and Doha. 

Crime rates com­pared to oth­er coun­tries are some of the low­est in the world and still decreas­ing. Inhab­i­tants can leave an unlocked car or home with­out fear of theft. Shops rarely expe­ri­ence shoplift­ing. The region is viewed as one of the safest in the world to raise a fam­i­ly or to build a busi­ness. With a lead­er­ship keen to dom­i­nate the glob­al UAM indus­try, it is of no sur­prise to learn that Archer is set­ting up its first inter­na­tion­al base in Abu Dhabi after sign­ing a MOU with ADIO to launch a Mid­night eVTOL ser­vice across the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates in 2026.

Archer, Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Office Sign MOU, Plans to Launch Company’s eVTOL Ser­vice Across UAE in 2026

For Archer, expan­sion will be eas­i­er and faster than in the West. If the U.S com­pa­ny requires a series of ver­ti­ports to be con­struct­ed as part of a new flight ser­vice, they will be built and quick­ly. No lengthy and heat­ed dis­cus­sions with the local peo­ple; no demon­stra­tions or com­plaints about noise; no red tape to cross, so long as safe­ty is para­mount. If you build it, they will come. Sim­i­lar rules apply to the drone deliv­ery and car­go indus­try, where lead­ing ver­ti­port com­pa­nies like Sky­ports could also pros­per. 

While the Mid­dle East’s social and polit­i­cal atti­tudes may be viewed by some with dis­dain, per­haps cyn­i­cal­ly, this can assist the new and emerg­ing UAM indus­try. And with the con­struc­tion of NEOM gen­er­at­ing glob­al inter­est and huge invest­ment, this could only help the fly­ing taxi indus­try. There­fore, it is imper­a­tive that eVTOL and drone com­pa­nies gain a foot­ing. 

Already, Volo­copter is col­lab­o­rat­ing with the NEOM project to be the first fly­ing taxi ser­vice in that region. Back in Novem­ber 2022, the project announced a USD175 mil­lion Series E invest­ment in the eVTOL com­pa­ny and this June, the first Voloc­i­ty tri­als took place in Sau­di Ara­bia. Chris­t­ian Bauer, Chief Com­mer­cial Offi­cer of Volo­copter, enthused, “As the first eVTOL air­craft to ever test here, we are proud to have laid the ground­work for our future col­lab­o­ra­tion.”

The press release announc­ing this part­ner­ship states, “These air­craft will be employed as air taxis and emer­gency response vehi­cles, offer­ing qui­eter oper­a­tion, greater adapt­abil­i­ty, and low­er oper­at­ing costs com­pared to tra­di­tion­al heli­copters. The future of pub­lic trans­port has arrived.”

Voloc­i­ty Fly­ing Over Oxagon (graph­ic image)

Oth­er eVTOL com­pa­nies like Joby and Lil­i­um are already build­ing busi­ness links in the Mid­dle East. For exam­ple, Lil­i­um announced today (Octo­ber 31st) that Arcos­Jet has been appoint­ed as its autho­rised deal­er for the UAE. To repeat, this is the ter­ri­to­ry where you need to be.

Along with Chi­na, it may well become the finan­cial and busi­ness pow­er­house of the future and why exhibit­ing at the Dubai Air­show, the epi­cen­tre of this future UAM rev­o­lu­tion, is impor­tant and why evtolinsights.com is hold­ing a pri­vate and inti­mate gath­er­ing on Sun­day, Novem­ber 12th from 12 noon to 3pm local time. 

The event held at the W Dubai — The Palm, fea­tures a 5* buf­fet lunch and pro­vides com­pa­nies with an exclu­sive oppor­tu­ni­ty to net­work face-to-face with senior indus­try exec­u­tives from the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket. Those attend­ing include rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Archer, Lil­i­um, Ascen­dance Flight Tech­nolo­gies, FreeFlight Sys­tems, Rolls-Royce Elec­tri­cal, Cana­di­an Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Con­sor­tium (CAAM) and Sau­di Aero­space Engi­neer­ing. More com­pa­nies are to fol­low.  

Edi­tors and jour­nal­ists from The Roy­al Aero­nau­ti­cal Society’s AEROSPACE mag­a­zine, Sim­ple Fly­ing, Avi­a­tion Inter­na­tion­al News and Airlines.de will also attend this ‘behind closed doors’ event. Mean­while, a film crew is on site to con­duct video inter­views with each com­pa­ny attend­ing. Food and drink will be pro­vid­ed by the even­t’s spon­sor, FreeFlight Sys­tems. 

For more infor­ma­tion about this inti­mate and exclu­sive Dubai event please email Doreen Pupil­lo, Head of Part­ner­ships at eVTOL Insights: doreen@evtolinsights.com or to secure your spot and buy a tick­et, please vis­it our Eventbrite page.

(Top image: Dubai Air­show)