Kevin Cox to lead Ferrovial Airport’s vertiport business after being appointed Chief Executive Officer

Fer­rovial Air­ports has appoint­ed Kevin Cox Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of its ver­ti­ports busi­ness.

With more than thir­ty years’ expe­ri­ence in the avi­a­tion sec­tor, he will lead this new busi­ness area that will focus on the devel­op­ment of ver­ti­port net­works for the take-off, land­ing oper­a­tion and main­te­nance of pas­sen­ger ser­vices of elec­tri­cal air­crafts.

Cox has served in exec­u­tive lead­er­ship posi­tions at some of the largest and most com­plex organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing one of the busiest air­ports in the world—DFW Inter­na­tion­al Air­port; one of the world’s largest Air­line — Amer­i­can Air­lines; Sig­na­ture Avi­a­tion and FBO Net­work.

Luke Buge­ja, CEO of Fer­rovial Air­ports, said: “Kevin’s brings a wealth of expe­ri­ence and in-depth knowl­edge of one of the most com­pet­i­tive avi­a­tion mar­kets. He will be instru­men­tal in our ambi­tions to be a leader in pro­vid­ing high speed, afford­able, emis­sions-free trav­el to mil­lions of peo­ple, now, and it the future. I am delight­ed to have him in the team.”

Com­ment­ing on his new appoint­ment, Cox added: “I am hon­oured to become part of the Fer­rovial team and excit­ed to lead the Ver­ti­ports busi­ness for this vision­ary com­pa­ny.  The abil­i­ty to quick­ly and seam­less­ly trav­el to and from a Fer­rovial Ver­ti­port in an elec­tric air­craft will for­ev­er change the urban trans­porta­tion, and the Fer­rovial team is on the fore­front of this trans­for­ma­tion” said Kevin Cox, CEO of Fer­rovial Ver­ti­ports.

Ver­ti­ports are essen­tial to pro­vide infra­struc­ture for land­ing, recharg­ing, and tak­ing off with pas­sen­gers of all-elec­tric, ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­crafts. These inter­modal cen­tres, which are inte­grat­ed into the city and adapt­ed to the sur­round­ings envi­ron­ment, reduce noise impact, allow zero oper­at­ing emis­sions and improve ener­gy effi­cien­cy through inno­v­a­tive design.

Fer­rovial has already made some announce­ments in the indus­try when it comes to ver­ti­port devel­op­ment. AECOM, one of the world’s lead­ing infra­struc­ture con­sult­ing firms, will work with Fer­rovial to design a net­work of ver­ti­ports in the USA, which will con­nect strate­gic loca­tions in some of Florida’s major cities.

Fer­rovial is part­ner­ing with Ger­man start­up Lil­i­um to devel­op this net­work, and its work with AECOM will enable a high-speed, envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly, and afford­able trans­port sys­tem con­nect­ing state cities in more con­ve­nient ways.

This new part­ner­ship will see both com­pa­nies col­lab­o­rate in the design and con­struc­tion of ver­ti­port facil­i­ties, as well as the oper­a­tion and main­te­nance for pas­sen­ger ser­vices.

Else­where, Fer­rovial Air­ports also launched a project to devel­op a net­work of more than 20 inter­con­nect­ed and 100 per cent sus­tain­able ver­ti­ports in Spain ear­li­er this year and more recent­ly, announced it will be work­ing with Ver­ti­cal Aero­space to devel­op a net­work in the UK.

Fer­rovial is regard­ed as a lead­ing infra­struc­ture investor and oper­a­tor, and cur­rent­ly man­ages $10 bil­lion in assets in the Unit­ed States. Fer­rovial Air­ports have been part of the avi­a­tion indus­try since 1998 and have more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence invest­ing, devel­op­ing and oper­at­ing 33 air­ports around the world.

The cur­rent port­fo­lio in the Unit­ed King­dom con­sists of four air­ports. With a 25 per cent stake, Fer­rovial is the largest share­hold­er and indus­tri­al part­ner in Heathrow Air­port, one of the busiest air­ports in the world. It also holds a 50 per cent stake in Glas­gow, Aberdeen and Southamp­ton air­ports.