Joby Aviation and Skyports Infrastructure to develop ‘Living Lab’ passenger terminal

Joby Avi­a­tion and Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture have announced today that they are devel­op­ing a ‘Liv­ing Lab’ pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal that will enable the two com­pa­nies to test a vari­ety of tech­nolo­gies and pro­ce­dures that will help define how pas­sen­gers expe­ri­ence ver­ti­cal flight in the future.

Joby head of prod­uct Eric Alli­son said: “Our eVTOL air­craft is set to rev­o­lu­tionise the way we trav­el in and around cities. Joby rid­ers will skip the traf­fic, fly­ing direct­ly to their des­ti­na­tion at over 200 mph.

“But to realise the vision of every­day flight, we need to deliv­er a seam­less and more rapid expe­ri­ence on the ground. The Liv­ing Lab will allow us to rethink the ter­mi­nal expe­ri­ence, keep­ing our cus­tomers front and cen­tre through­out their entire jour­ney.”

Sky­ports CEO Dun­can Walk­er added: “We expect the Liv­ing Lab to be instru­men­tal in our efforts to engage reg­u­la­tors, gov­ern­ment offi­cials, and the pub­lic to demon­strate the ben­e­fits of eVTOL oper­a­tions and pro­mote accep­tance of this new form of mobil­i­ty.

“Our aim is to devel­op ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture that deliv­ers a zero-wait check-in expe­ri­ence for cus­tomers, and we’re delight­ed to be work­ing with Joby, one of the lead­ing com­pa­nies in this sec­tor, to pre­pare for that future.”

The Liv­ing Lab was unveiled in advance of Joby’s Field Trip event, dur­ing which the com­pa­ny will open its doors to a range of part­ners and investors to see behind the scenes of its pilot pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty, where the company’s first pro­duc­tion pro­to­type is cur­rent­ly being built.

Over the next 18 months, the Liv­ing Lab will be show­cased at loca­tions through­out the US, giv­ing indus­try and the pub­lic the oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence the future of avi­a­tion.

Ear­li­er this year, Sky­ports announced a UK gov­ern­ment-fund­ed project to devel­op a ver­ti­port at a Lon­don Gen­er­al Avi­a­tion Aerodome. The company’s Euro­pean ver­ti­port test­bed will also launch in Novem­ber this year at the Pon­toise-Cormeilles aero­drome, Paris, with an exten­sive pro­gram of live flight oper­a­tions.