Middle East: Joby Aviation Completes Landmark Flight and Announces Next Vertiport Locations For Dubai’s Air Taxi Network

Joby Avi­a­tion has announced the next three ver­ti­ports to be added to Dubai’s elec­tric air taxi net­work, along­side Dubai’s Road and Trans­port Author­i­ty (RTA) and Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture, who will be respon­si­ble for build­ing the ver­ti­ports.

The sites, at the Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty of Dubai, Atlantis the Roy­al and the Dubai Mall, will enable Joby to deliv­er high-speed, emis­sions-free con­nec­tions between some of Dubai’s most high-pro­file des­ti­na­tions, as part of its six-year exclu­sive agree­ment with the RTA to estab­lish air taxi ser­vices in the Emi­rate. 

The news comes as Joby suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a land­mark flight test, becom­ing the first elec­tric air taxi com­pa­ny to con­duct a point-to-point flight in the UAE.

JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby Avi­a­tion, said: “From flight demon­stra­tions to infra­struc­ture, we’re mak­ing incred­i­ble progress on all fronts as we look ahead to launch­ing com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger ser­vice in Dubai next year.

Today’s ver­ti­port announce­ment brings togeth­er three major Dubai prop­er­ty devel­op­ers — Emaar Prop­er­ties, Atlantis The Roy­al, and Wasl Asset Man­age­ment Group — to deliv­er a net­work of valu­able and high-traf­fic sites across the emi­rate:

• •Dubai Mall: The world’s largest shop­ping and enter­tain­ment des­ti­na­tion, attract­ing near­ly 111 mil­lion vis­i­tors in 2024 to its vast array of attrac­tions, such as the Burj Khal­i­fa
• •Atlantis the Roy­al: A glob­al land­mark resort locat­ed at the cen­ter of Palm Jumeirah, offer­ing unmatched con­nec­tiv­i­ty to pre­mier beach­front des­ti­na­tions, world-class din­ing, and enter­tain­ment
• •Amer­i­can Uni­ver­si­ty of Dubai: Strate­gi­cal­ly locat­ed to serve both Dubai Marina’s vibrant res­i­den­tial and enter­tain­ment hub and Dubai Inter­net City’s lead­ing tech­nol­o­gy and cor­po­rate dis­tricts

On Sun­day, Novem­ber 9th, Joby land­ed its air­craft at Al Mak­toum Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (DWC) fol­low­ing a 17-minute pilot­ed flight from its test facil­i­ty in Margham, under­scor­ing Joby’s com­mer­cial mar­ket readi­ness and abil­i­ty to oper­ate in shared air­space. Tens of thou­sands of atten­dees were able to see Joby’s air­craft fly for the first time at the Dubai Air­show on Mon­day, with demon­stra­tion flights planned all of this week.

His Excel­len­cy Mat­tar Al Tay­er, Direc­tor Gen­er­al, Chair­man of the Board of Exec­u­tive Direc­tors of Dubai’s Roads and Trans­port Author­i­ty (RTA), said: “The suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of the first crewed flight of the elec­tric aer­i­al taxi marks a new mile­stone in Dubai’s dis­tin­guished record of lead­er­ship and inno­va­tion.

“The suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion by Joby Avi­a­tion of the first air taxi flight between two dis­tinct loca­tions under­scores the suc­cess of RTA’s oper­a­tional frame­work for devel­op­ing Dubai’s aer­i­al mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. This mile­stone paves the way for a new phase of inte­gra­tion among smart mobil­i­ty sys­tems across the emi­rate, fur­ther strength­en­ing the con­fi­dence of glob­al part­ners in Dubai’s reg­u­la­to­ry and tech­no­log­i­cal envi­ron­ment and estab­lish­ing it as a lead­ing glob­al plat­form for future mobil­i­ty tri­als.“

His Excel­len­cy added: “RTA is steadi­ly pro­gress­ing towards the com­mer­cial launch of the aer­i­al taxi ser­vice in 2026, solid­i­fy­ing Dubai’s posi­tion as the city of the future and a glob­al hub for inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able urban mobil­i­ty solu­tions, com­bin­ing effi­cient infra­struc­ture with high qual­i­ty of life.”