Middle East: Vertical Aerospace and Saudi National Industrial Development Centre to Accelerate AAM in the Kingdom as part of Vision 2030

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has signed a strate­gic three-par­ty Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing in the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, aimed at devel­op­ing the frame­work for an Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem as part of the coun­try’s Vision 2030.

The agree­ment has been signed by Abdel Hadi Abdul­lah Al-Qah­tani & Sons Group of Com­pa­nies (Tariq Al-Qah­tani & Broth­ers) (AHQ Group), a lead­ing Sau­di indus­tri­al con­glom­er­ate and the Sau­di Nation­al Indus­tri­al Devel­op­ment Cen­tre (NIDC), part of the Min­istry of Indus­try and Min­er­al Resources.  

Under the MoU, all par­ties will eval­u­ate a broad set of oppor­tu­ni­ties span­ning man­u­fac­tur­ing local­i­sa­tion, com­mer­cial eVTOL oper­a­tions and poten­tial invest­ment and incen­tive oppor­tu­ni­ties, sup­port­ing Vertical’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme and long-term growth.

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “Sau­di Ara­bia is one of the most strate­gi­cal­ly impor­tant future mar­kets for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty. Sign­ing this MoU here in Riyadh reflects the Kingdom’s ambi­tion to build a world-class aero­space indus­tri­al capa­bil­i­ty under Vision 2030.

“Part­ner­ing with AHQ Group and NIDC brings togeth­er deep indus­tri­al exper­tise, cap­i­tal strength and a shared com­mit­ment to estab­lish­ing Sau­di Ara­bia as a region­al leader in this new sec­tor.” 

Ver­ti­cal says Sau­di Ara­bia rep­re­sents one of the largest and most attrac­tive emerg­ing mar­kets for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty, with the poten­tial to sup­port the oper­a­tion of more than 1,000 of its Valo air­craft – cur­rent­ly in devel­op­ment to be cer­ti­fied in 2028.

As a lead­ing Sau­di indus­tri­al group, AHQ Group will sup­port the eval­u­a­tion of indus­tri­al, com­mer­cial and invest­ment struc­tures required to estab­lish a scal­able and sus­tain­able AAM ecosys­tem in the King­dom.  

Togeth­er, Ver­ti­cal, AHQ Group and NIDC will explore how Sau­di Ara­bia can become a region­al hub for elec­tric air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing, bat­tery sys­tems and AAM ser­vices, sup­port­ing Vision 2030’s ambi­tions for indus­tri­al diver­si­fi­ca­tion, high­ly skilled job cre­ation and clean trans­port. 

Chair­man Tariq Abdel Hadi Al-Qah­tani, AHQ Group, said: “Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty rep­re­sents a new fron­tier for Sau­di Arabia’s indus­tri­al and mobil­i­ty ambi­tions. Through this MoU with Ver­ti­cal Aero­space and NIDC, we are explor­ing poten­tial invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties to build a scal­able, glob­al­ly com­pet­i­tive AAM ecosys­tem that com­bines advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing, sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty and long-term eco­nom­ic val­ue. 

“AHQ Group brings deep indus­tri­al expe­ri­ence and local insight, and we see this part­ner­ship as an impor­tant step in sup­port­ing Vision 2030’s goals for diver­si­fi­ca­tion, inno­va­tion and high-qual­i­ty job cre­ation.” 

Eng Saleh Al Sola­mi, CEO of the Nation­al Indus­tri­al Devel­op­ment Cen­tre (NIDC), added: “This MoU reflects NIDC’s man­date to enable advanced indus­tries and attract high-val­ue man­u­fac­tur­ing to the King­dom. Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty has the poten­tial to become a strate­gic indus­tri­al sec­tor for Sau­di Ara­bia, span­ning air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ing, bat­tery sys­tems and future mobil­i­ty ser­vices.

“Work­ing with Ver­ti­cal Aero­space and AHQ Group allows us to assess poten­tial path­ways for local­i­sa­tion, invest­ment and incen­tives, posi­tion­ing the King­dom as a region­al hub for next-gen­er­a­tion aero­space tech­nolo­gies in line with Vision 2030.” 

Valo — engi­neered for the region 

Valo will be Vertical’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion elec­tric air­craft, designed to fly up to 160km at speeds of 240 km/h with zero oper­at­ing emis­sions and engi­neered to meet air­lin­er-lev­el safe­ty stan­dards. Ver­ti­cal is also devel­op­ing a hybrid-elec­tric vari­ant, offer­ing increased range and mis­sion flex­i­bil­i­ty. 

Valo has been engi­neered to oper­ate in hot, high-demand envi­ron­ments, mak­ing it par­tic­u­lar­ly well-suit­ed to Sau­di Ara­bia and the wider GCC region. Key char­ac­ter­is­tics include: 

• High pay­load capa­bil­i­ty to sup­port full com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in extreme heat
• Oper­at­ing per­for­mance up to 50 degrees Cel­sius or 122 degrees Fahren­heit
• Advanced ther­mal man­age­ment sys­tems to ensure reli­a­bil­i­ty, per­for­mance and pas­sen­ger com­fort.  
• Bat­ter­ies installed in the fuse­lage, ther­mal­ly iso­lat­ed from solar radi­a­tion and extreme heat 
• Designed to the most rig­or­ous safe­ty stan­dards under UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) and Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion require­ments