Saudi Arabia AAM Initiative to Provide “Safe and Most Developed Air Mobility in Middle East”

The ambi­tion of Sau­di Ara­bia to become the epi­cen­tre and leader of the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) rev­o­lu­tion is once again on show with a promise this week from Saudi’s Gen­er­al Author­i­ty of Civ­il Avi­a­tion (GACA) “to make AAM the safest and most devel­oped in the Mid­dle East region,” reports a GACA press release. Its ambi­tious roadmap includes a wide range of inno­v­a­tive solu­tions rang­ing from small unmanned drones to eVTOL and VTOL Air­craft.

Under the ini­tia­tive, ‘Enabling Advanced Air Trans­port in the King­dom’, these tech­nolo­gies will pro­vide “safe, sound, sus­tain­able and faster” means of trans­port for peo­ple and goods, char­ac­terised by “high tech­ni­cal capa­bil­i­ties” that con­tribute to alle­vi­at­ing con­ges­tion on the roads and facil­i­tat­ing easy access to remote areas in the coun­try, while con­tribut­ing to “over­all eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment.”

Dubai Air­show: “Why The Mid­dle East Could Dom­i­nate Future eVTOL and UAM Indus­try” 

Capt. Sulaiman Al-Muhayme­di, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of GACA for avi­a­tion safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty, remarked, “We’re not just build­ing a new mode of trans­porta­tion; we’re cre­at­ing the back­bone for the next era of eco­nom­ic and social devel­op­ment in Sau­di Ara­bia.”

He con­tin­ued, “Suc­cess­ful tests across Saudi’s diverse land­scapes and cli­mate con­di­tions have laid the ground­work for advance­ments that promise to alle­vi­ate traf­fic con­ges­tion, improve emer­gency med­ical ser­vices and con­tribute to the Kingdom’s ambi­tious goal of achiev­ing net-zero car­bon emis­sions by 2060.”

Adding, “The ini­tia­tive in Sau­di Ara­bia will include steps to draw a com­pre­hen­sive road map to place AAM at the fore­front of the avi­a­tion indus­try; trans­form­ing the future of the trans­porta­tion sec­tor; and offer­ing inno­v­a­tive solu­tions, from small unmanned air­craft sys­tems (sUAS) to eVTOL and VTOL air­craft.”

Al-Muhayme­di explained these devel­op­ments will con­tribute “to rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing the move­ment of pas­sen­gers, trans­porta­tion of goods, emer­gency response, med­ical evac­u­a­tion, and dis­as­ter relief”, while draw­ing atten­tion “to envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

He indi­cat­ed that a wide vari­ety of tri­als would be con­duct­ed in the King­dom which will include diverse ter­rain and mul­ti­ple cli­mat­ic con­di­tions, with the aim to reduce traf­fic con­ges­tion and road acci­dents.

Sau­di Ara­bi­an Air­lines (Saudia) has signed an agree­ment with Lil­i­um to buy up to 100 of its Jet eVTOLs for use on Saudi­a’s domes­tic net­work

‘Enabling Advanced Air Trans­port in the King­dom’ fol­lows the release of the ‘Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Devel­op­ment Plan in Civ­il Avi­a­tion’ in 2022 that seeks to estab­lish a reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work based on best glob­al prac­tices, aimed at min­imis­ing aviation’s envi­ron­men­tal foot­print.

Sau­di Ara­bia already has exist­ing finan­cial ties, AAM part­ner­ships and Mem­o­ran­dums of Under­stand­ing with UAM-relat­ed com­pa­nies from Amer­i­ca, Europe, South Korea, Sin­ga­pore and Chi­na. These com­pa­nies include Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, Volo­copter, Lil­i­um, Joby Avi­a­tion, Sabrew­ing and Dron­am­ics. Sau­di is also con­struct­ing the futur­is­tic city of NEOM which is to rely on fly­ing taxis and drones for its trans­porta­tion of peo­ple and car­go.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://gaca.gov.sa/web/en-gb/page/home

Top image: Capt. Sulaiman Al-Muhayme­di, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent of GACA (Cred­it — Bil­lyP­ix)