MIDDLE EAST: XPENG AEROHT’s Flying Car Receives Special Flight Permit In Ras Al Khaimah, UAE

Chi­nese fly­ing car com­pa­ny XPENG AEROHT has recent­ly received a spe­cial flight per­mit for its “Land Air­craft Car­ri­er” in Ras Al Khaimah, the north­ern­most emi­rate of the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE).

The approval was grant­ed dur­ing a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cer­e­mo­ny on Wednes­day, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant step in test­ing and deploy­ing elec­tric ver­ti­cal mobil­i­ty in the region.

The event was attend­ed by Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasi­mi, ruler of Ras Al Khaimah and mem­ber of the UAE Supreme Coun­cil, along with Zhang Yim­ing, the Chi­nese ambas­sador to the UAE, and oth­er senior offi­cials. The per­mit was for­mal­ly pre­sent­ed to Zhao Deli, founder of XPENG AEROHT.

Zhao praised the UAE’s inno­va­tion ecosys­tem, not­ing that its “open inno­va­tion envi­ron­ment pro­vides an ide­al plat­form for val­i­dat­ing fly­ing car tech­nol­o­gy.”

Strategic Agreement Signed

Along­side the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, the Ras Al Khaimah Trans­port Author­i­ty signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with XPENG AEROHT.

The agree­ment out­lines coop­er­a­tion on flight test­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, sce­nario appli­ca­tions, and the broad­er pro­mo­tion of fly­ing cars across sev­er­al sec­tors, includ­ing gov­ern­ment trans­port, tourism, and emer­gency res­cue.

Esmaeel Al Blooshi, direc­tor gen­er­al of the trans­port author­i­ty, said the part­ner­ship under­scores the UAE’s ambi­tion in the smart mobil­i­ty sec­tor.

“Inte­grat­ing Chi­nese fly­ing vehi­cle tech­nol­o­gy enhances the UAE’s posi­tion in glob­al smart mobil­i­ty and low-car­bon trans­porta­tion, serv­ing as a demon­stra­tion for the Mid­dle East,” he said.

The “Land Air­craft Car­ri­er” is a ful­ly elec­tric vehi­cle designed for urban air mobil­i­ty. It fea­tures an intel­li­gent large dis­play and a sin­gle-stick con­trol sys­tem, sup­port­ing both auto­mat­ic and man­u­al oper­a­tion.

Accord­ing to XPENG AEROHT, its advanced flight con­trol sys­tem is designed to enhance oper­a­tional safe­ty, while low noise lev­els and envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly tech­nol­o­gy make it suit­able for city use.

The announce­ment aligns with the UAE’s broad­er efforts to devel­op its low-alti­tude econ­o­my. The coun­try has been imple­ment­ing poli­cies aimed at attract­ing glob­al com­pa­nies in smart trans­porta­tion and accel­er­at­ing the adop­tion of sus­tain­able, next-gen­er­a­tion mobil­i­ty solu­tions.