Former FAA Vertiport Specialist Robert Bassey joins Skyportz to support its Aeroberm Concept into the US Market

Sky­portz has con­firmed Robert Bassey as the com­pa­ny’s Tech­ni­cal and Reg­u­la­to­ry Advi­so­ry Lead, where he will sup­port the company’s entry into the US mar­ket with its Aer­oberm™ con­cept, a mod­u­lar, down­wash-man­ag­ing ver­ti­port sys­tem designed to accel­er­ate safe, scal­able ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture.

Bassey is wide­ly recog­nised as one of the lead­ing tech­ni­cal con­trib­u­tors to the Unit­ed States’ nation­al ver­ti­port design stan­dards.

Dur­ing his tenure in the FAA Office of Air­ports, he authored major ele­ments of Engi­neer­ing Brief 105A, help­ing shape foun­da­tion­al cri­te­ria for ver­ti­port lay­out design, downwash/outwash require­ments, site safe­ty, and fire pro­tec­tion inte­gra­tion for next-gen­er­a­tion eVTOL oper­a­tions.

Bassey’s tech­ni­cal advi­so­ry remit at Sky­portz will focus on align­ing Aeroberm’s design and oper­a­tional inter­faces with key US expec­ta­tions for ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture, includ­ing per­for­mance-informed downwash/outwash man­age­ment, site safe­ty objec­tives, noise ame­lio­ra­tion mea­sures and inte­grat­ed fire and emer­gency response con­sid­er­a­tions. The work will also sup­port Sky­portz engage­ment with air­ports, state agen­cies, OEMs, and infra­struc­ture part­ners as Aer­oberm deploy­ments are pro­gressed.

Sky­portz CEO, Clem New­ton-Brown, said the appoint­ment strength­ens Skyportz’s path­way to deliv­er Aer­oberm into the US mar­ket with con­fi­dence and rigour.

He said: “Robert brings rare, hands-on expe­ri­ence from inside the FAA framework—exactly the exper­tise we need as we pre­pare Aer­oberm for com­pli­ant entry into the Unit­ed States. His work on nation­al ver­ti­port design cri­te­ria gives Sky­portz deep insight into how reg­u­la­tors and air­ports will eval­u­ate safe­ty, oper­a­tional integri­ty, and design intent as eVTOL net­works scale.”

Bassey also cur­rent­ly serves as Chief Strat­e­gy Offi­cer for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty at EIT, a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary engi­neer­ing firm, and leads Avi­ka Sky, EIT’s ded­i­cat­ed AAM sys­tems-inte­gra­tion sub­sidiary.

In these roles, he over­sees the coor­di­nat­ed inte­gra­tion of air­craft oper­a­tions, ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture, ener­gy sys­tems, reg­u­la­to­ry com­pli­ance frame­works, safe­ty gov­er­nance, and state and air­port deploy­ment plan­ning across mul­ti­ple pro­grams. He also leads AAM Blue­print Advi­so­ry, a tech­ni­cal con­sul­tan­cy pro­vid­ing ear­ly-stage reg­u­la­to­ry align­ment and design-intent guid­ance to emerg­ing AAM infra­struc­ture pro­grams glob­al­ly.

Through these posi­tions, Bassey brings a sys­tems inte­gra­tion per­spec­tive that com­ple­ments Skyportz’s prod­uct focused deploy­ment mod­el — sup­port­ing inter­face stan­dard­iza­tion, reg­u­la­to­ry readi­ness, and ecosys­tem coor­di­na­tion essen­tial for suc­cess­ful U.S. scal­ing. 

Com­ment­ing on his new role, Bassey believes Sky­portz is well-posi­tioned to sup­port the next phase of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty plan­ning with prac­ti­cal infra­struc­ture that can scale.

He added: “The indus­try needs ver­ti­port solu­tions that are not only inno­v­a­tive but ground­ed in clear reg­u­la­to­ry path­ways and real-world oper­a­tional plan­ning. Aeroberm’s mod­u­lar approach is com­pelling for air­ports and com­mu­ni­ties seek­ing scal­able infra­struc­ture.

It is exact­ly the sort of inno­v­a­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the indus­try that the FAA has been encour­ag­ing. I’m look­ing for­ward to help­ing Sky­portz trans­late strong engi­neer­ing into design intent that sup­ports FAA-aligned com­pli­ance and safe deploy­ment.”

You can watch an inter­view with Clem New­ton-Brown from this year’s Dubai Air­show by click­ing here, where he goes into more detail about Aer­oberm and the val­ue it can bring to the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket.