SkyGrid and Port San Antonio Partner to Enable Advanced Air Mobility at a Joint-Use Airfield

 Sky­Grid and the Port San Anto­nio will joint­ly explore tech­nolo­gies, ser­vices and oper­a­tional frame­works to safe­ly inte­grate Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions on the Port’s 1,900-acre Tech Port cam­pus and beyond.

Through a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU), both com­pa­nies will col­lab­o­rate to assess the tech­ni­cal, reg­u­la­to­ry and oper­a­tional require­ments nec­es­sary to enable and scale crewed and uncrewed air­craft oper­a­tions, lever­ag­ing Port San Antonio’s Tech Port cam­pus and SkyGrid’s exper­tise in dig­i­tal air­space ser­vices, automa­tion, and oper­a­tional assur­ance.

While much of the news in the AAM world focus­es on air­craft, Sky­Grid and Port San Anto­nio are devel­op­ing the foun­da­tion­al sys­tem that will enable safe, well-inte­grat­ed oper­a­tions in the future. Under the MOU, the Sky­Grid and Port San Anto­nio team will explore sev­er­al areas for col­lab­o­ra­tion, includ­ing:

• Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Con­cepts of Oper­a­tions (CONOPs) for joint-use air­fields
• New dig­i­tal flight rules
• Air­space design, AAM rout­ing, and air traf­fic man­age­ment inte­gra­tion
• Low-alti­tude traf­fic sur­veil­lance, micro-weath­er, and dig­i­tal sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness
• Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ser­vice pro­vi­sions
• Air­port and ver­ti­port oper­a­tional con­cepts
• Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, nav­i­ga­tion, and sur­veil­lance (CNS) sys­tems and cyber-resilient infra­struc­ture
• Ground sys­tem cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and oper­a­tional approvals

The col­lab­o­ra­tion will also explore poten­tial align­ment with state and fed­er­al ini­tia­tives, includ­ing future pro­pos­als for the eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP), Cen­ter for Advanced Avi­a­tion Tech­nolo­gies (CAAT) task orders, and oth­er activ­i­ties sup­port­ing nation­al avi­a­tion mod­ern­iza­tion pri­or­i­ties.

Jia Xu, CEO of Sky­Grid, said: “Advanced air mobil­i­ty will only scale if it can be test­ed in envi­ron­ments that reflect real oper­a­tional com­plex­i­ty.

“Kel­ly Field’s joint-use set­ting, com­bined with Port San Antonio’s infra­struc­ture and vision, makes it an ide­al prov­ing ground to eval­u­ate how dig­i­tal air­space ser­vices and cyber-resilient sys­tems can sup­port the next gen­er­a­tion of avi­a­tion.”

Port San Anto­nio is among the strongest ready-to-scale AAM envi­ron­ments in Texas and nation­al­ly.

Sky­Grid and Port San Anto­nio will build on the Port’s efforts to build a ver­ti­port as well as pri­or analy­ses demon­strat­ing the strate­gic val­ue of the Port’s infra­struc­ture, air­space, exist­ing crit­i­cal mass of tech­nol­o­gy part­ners and the site’s oper­a­tional advan­tages as an ide­al envi­ron­ment for AAM research, devel­op­ment, and oper­a­tions.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion also reflects Boeing’s long-stand­ing pres­ence at Port San Anto­nio and across Texas. Boe­ing has oper­at­ed in Texas for more than 90 years, with one of its largest air­craft main­te­nance, mod­ern­iza­tion, and sus­tain­ment oper­a­tions locat­ed at Port San Anto­nio, which sup­ports crit­i­cal nation­al secu­ri­ty and com­mer­cial avi­a­tion mis­sions. 

Wisk Aero has also estab­lished the state of Texas as a U.S. launch mar­ket for its autonomous AAM oper­a­tions. As a Boe­ing com­pa­ny and sub­sidiary of Wisk Aero, Sky­Grid brings infra­struc­ture-grade dig­i­tal sys­tems and deep aero­space exper­tise to sup­port the safe inte­gra­tion of autonomous and advanced air mobil­i­ty air­craft into shared, reg­u­lat­ed air­space.

Jim Per­schbach, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Port San Anto­nio, added: “Sky­Grid is an invalu­able part­ner as we begin prov­ing advanced air mobil­i­ty.

“Their focus on dig­i­tal air­space infra­struc­ture and oper­a­tional assur­ance aligns direct­ly with the real­i­ties of a joint-use air­field. This part­ner­ship is a major val­i­da­tion of what we’ve long believed—that Port San Anto­nio is unique­ly posi­tioned to help shape the future of avi­a­tion.”