Beyond flights of fantasy: Disassembling the complexities of Advanced Air Mobility

By Yun Yuan Tay, Head of APAC, Sky­ports

Big fig­ures sur­round­ing the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) indus­try have increas­ing­ly dom­i­nat­ed head­lines over the last year, paint­ing a pic­ture that is bound to impress. Yet many com­plex­i­ties regard­ing the real­i­ty of get­ting AAM off the ground have yet to be solved for Aus­tralia.

Glob­al­ly, new invest­ments amount­ing to US$7 bil­lion poured into the indus­try in 2021, more than dou­ble the total invest­ment secured by the indus­try in the last decade. Five AAM com­pa­nies went pub­lic with a com­bined mar­ket cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion of US$10.7 bil­lion. Demand spiked in tan­dem, sig­nalling increased engage­ment from a vari­ety of play­ers, as air­craft orders placed totalled 6,850, worth US$26.1 bil­lion (1) .

Activ­i­ty across the glob­al AAM mar­ket is reach­ing fever pitch. Today, it is no longer a mat­ter of “if” this will hap­pen, but “when”. For the Aus­tralian mar­ket, AAM could unlock a whole host of appli­ca­tions for logis­tics, dis­as­ter relief, med­ical evac­u­a­tions, sur­veil­lance and secu­ri­ty oper­a­tions, as well as over­land and water trans­port.

The indus­try has moved beyond ren­der­ings and con­cep­tu­al­i­sa­tion, towards real-world deploy­ment that con­nects users with the tech­nol­o­gy.

From cel­lu­loid dreams to real-world struc­tures – all stake­hold­ers play a crit­i­cal piece
The next two years will be piv­otal for the indus­try, with the first glob­al com­mer­cial launch tar­get­ed for 2024. Infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers must put the­o­ry to prac­tice, and move ahead with actu­al oper­a­tions at least on a small scale if we are ever to meet that tar­get.

This achieve­ment will not be reached alone, but through encour­ag­ing a high­ly col­lab­o­ra­tive ecosys­tem which brings togeth­er many AAM spe­cialisms. Ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture will form the foun­da­tions of this ecosys­tem, act­ing as the link between indus­try, tra­di­tion­al avi­a­tion play­ers and the gen­er­al pub­lic.

Ver­ti­port devel­op­ment: it’s more than just mar­ket­ing
It is easy to get swept up by the allure of stylised artist’s impres­sions depict­ing ver­ti­ports and the future of trav­el. How­ev­er, such “fan art” pure­ly serves mar­ket­ing objec­tives, falling short of meet­ing prac­ti­cal oper­a­tional needs. With­out cre­at­ing a care­ful­ly stud­ied and rig­or­ous­ly test­ed ver­ti­port net­work, these iso­lat­ed nodes will be imprac­ti­cal, poten­tial­ly unsafe, and effec­tive­ly pre­clude the robust drone deliv­ery and pas­sen­ger flight oppor­tu­ni­ties that AAM promis­es.

The require­ments of the advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try can­not be achieved sim­ply by upgrad­ing exist­ing assets with land­ing pads. Instead, ver­ti­port design and devel­op­ment requires a team of air­port plan­ners, devel­op­ers, reg­u­la­to­ry, air­space and tech­nol­o­gy experts, and oper­a­tions per­son­nel – just to name a few.

To accom­plish this major shift in the avi­a­tion indus­try, infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers also need to be well-con­nect­ed and well cap­i­talised. They need to attract cap­i­tal and sup­port from a diverse range of investors in order to tru­ly move the nee­dle. For instance, Aus­tralia-based Good­man Group has tak­en notice of the trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial of AAM, invest­ing in Sky­ports in March this year.

Com­ment­ing on the poten­tial of AAM, Good­man Cor­po­rate Exec­u­tive Aaron Mor­gan said: “Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty has the poten­tial to sig­nif­i­cant­ly change the way we trans­port peo­ple and goods. As a busi­ness that pro­vides essen­tial infra­struc­ture to the dig­i­tal econ­o­my, it’s impor­tant we under­stand the tech­nol­o­gy and are active­ly involved in shap­ing the future of trans­port and logis­tics.”

Good­man Group’s sup­port for the indus­try rep­re­sents a sig­nif­i­cant devel­op­ment for the entire ecosys­tem, bring­ing vast expe­ri­ence and exper­tise in the indus­tri­al prop­er­ty and logis­tics sec­tors to AAM play­ers in Aus­tralia and glob­al­ly.

OEM part­ners, the lifeblood which runs through the veins of ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture, rep­re­sent anoth­er cor­ner­stone for infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers. Indus­try lead­ers like Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, Volo­copter, Joby Avi­a­tion and Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, for instance, have not only pro­gressed past design con­cepts towards gain­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for a num­ber of air­craft, but have also secured sig­nif­i­cant air­craft orders.

As air­craft devel­op­ers charge ahead and lead the indus­try for­ward, key play­ers like Eve con­tin­ue to recog­nise the essen­tial part­ner­ship between OEMs and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers in tru­ly get­ting the indus­try off the ground.

Eve co-CEO Andre Stein said: “Eve has been work­ing with key stake­hold­ers in Aus­tralia for a num­ber of years. We believe the coun­try has the poten­tial to lead the growth of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty world­wide due to indus­try inter­est and invest­ment, gov­ern­ment sup­port and its world-lead­ing avi­a­tion safe­ty record.

“Cre­at­ing a safe and sus­tain­able UAM ecosys­tem demands inno­v­a­tive solu­tions, includ­ing fleet oper­a­tions, air traf­fic man­age­ment, ser­vices and sup­port. And when it comes to infra­struc­ture, such as ver­ti­ports, part­ner­ing with sol­id play­ers with real oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence is essen­tial to ensure they will be ready for oper­a­tion.”

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with oth­er play­ers in the indus­try, these OEMs and for­ward-look­ing tra­di­tion­al avi­a­tion play­ers have con­sis­tent­ly led the way in gain­ing valu­able oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence for these safe­ty crit­i­cal oper­a­tions. Infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers must take their role seri­ous­ly, and work along­side part­ners that have demon­strat­ed exper­tise in on-ground air­port oper­a­tions. This is essen­tial in order to attain expert guid­ance and gain the nec­es­sary expe­ri­ence to devel­op real-world solu­tions for AAM deploy­ment.

Tim­ing and thought­ful deploy­ment is every­thing
Infra­struc­ture deliv­ery will not hap­pen at the flip of a switch. Devel­op­ing a thought­ful­ly-designed net­work takes time and effort, and will face many chal­lenges.

To make real progress, infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers must be focused on secur­ing sites in strate­gic loca­tions; devel­op­ing an air­field design that meets capac­i­ty require­ments; ensur­ing ade­quate ser­vices for eVTOL oper­a­tors, such as elec­tric grid capac­i­ty and access and pas­sen­ger access; and joint­ly set­ting reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments with the rel­e­vant author­i­ties.

In short, there will be long lead times for the devel­op­ment of ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture, and real work on the ground must be pri­ori­tised to even attain a mid-2020s time­line for ini­tial com­mer­cial oper­a­tions. The indus­try must col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly plan ahead to be ready for deploy­ment when OEMs enter into ser­vice, and do away with lofty ambi­tions devoid of action.

Take Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, which is backed by giant aero­space OEM Embraer, for instance, which has pub­licly announced that its time­line for air­craft deliv­er­ies will com­mence in 2026, and has secured 150 orders from Aus­tralian oper­a­tors so far. To meet this tar­get date, infra­struc­ture deploy­ment must begin by 2024, so that the grad­ual roll­out will coin­cide with vehi­cle deploy­ment. To meet such a dead­line, fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies, engag­ing with local author­i­ties, and com­mu­ni­ty con­sul­ta­tion should already be under­way.

Aus­tralia is a prime mar­ket, land­lords are key com­po­nents of enabling AAM
Aus­tralia is set to be one of AAM’s ear­ly adopters. Its pro­gres­sive and sup­port­ive reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment has already drawn the atten­tion of var­i­ous OEMs in the mar­ket such as Eve and home­grown AMSL Aero, with a clear AAM vision and roadmap (2) set by the country’s Civ­il Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Author­i­ty (CASA). By 2030, it is fore­cast that the Aus­tralian mar­ket will see at least 120 eVTOL air­craft in oper­a­tion, reach­ing US$2.6 bil­lion in ser­vice rev­enue by 2050.

It is crit­i­cal for the indus­try and gov­ern­ment agen­cies to have a coor­di­nat­ed approach to launch­ing AAM, with a clear roadmap for com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion to cap­ture invest­ment from com­pa­nies. The state of Vic­to­ria is lead­ing the way for the rest of the coun­try, hav­ing been active­ly engaged in dis­course with the country’s reg­u­la­tors and AAM indus­try lead­ers over the past two years.

To fur­ther fos­ter the long-term growth of the AAM indus­try in Aus­tralia, it signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) with the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment in Decem­ber 2021 (4). Rein­forc­ing Queensland’s posi­tion as an AAM fron­trun­ner, the state is home to AAM indus­try col­lab­o­ra­tion plat­form, Green­bird, which aims to coor­di­nate the path for­ward as an indus­try body with like-mind­ed part­ners.

“The Vic­to­ri­an Gov­ern­ment is proac­tive­ly prepar­ing for the intro­duc­tion of advanced air mobil­i­ty that promis­es excit­ing options to expand our trans­port and sup­ply chain net­works. Not only will AAM stim­u­late eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and rev­o­lu­tionise a range of indus­tries and crit­i­cal func­tions through greater effi­cien­cies, it will also sup­port the tran­si­tion to more sus­tain­able modes of trans­port” – Dan­ni Jar­rett, CEO, Invest Vic­to­ria.

AAM Infra­struc­ture is essen­tial, and real estate own­ers play a key role in unlock­ing the land­scape for ver­ti­port deploy­ment. It is our view that only a frac­tion of the build­ings that might appear suit­able are actu­al­ly fea­si­ble, prop­er due dili­gence is para­mount to iden­ti­fy­ing suit­able loca­tions and acti­vat­ing them as take-off and land­ing sites. Not all rooftops are fea­si­ble loca­tions, for exam­ple, and could pose safe­ty risks if not assessed and con­sid­ered care­ful­ly. With­out con­sid­er­ing the air traf­fic net­work, air­space con­straints and pub­lic con­cerns such as noise, safe­ty and secu­ri­ty, this “spray and pray” approach to site selec­tion will be cost­ly and inef­fec­tive.

For land­lords, being a node on the net­work can have a pos­i­tive impact on sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties and real estate val­ue. The run­way is clos­ing in on us, and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers must imme­di­ate­ly com­mence work with land­lords to tru­ly trans­form exist­ing sites into ful­ly func­tion­al ver­ti­ports, and move this dream beyond ren­ders and promis­es and towards a brick and mor­tar real­i­ty.

About the author:
Yun-Yuan Tay is the Head of APAC for glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) infra­struc­ture devel­op­er, Sky­ports. Head­quar­tered in the UK with offices span­ning four con­ti­nents, Sky­ports is lead­ing the design, build and oper­a­tion of take-off and land­ing infra­struc­ture for air taxis, pro­vid­ing the crit­i­cal link between ground and sky. The com­pa­ny part­ners with world-class elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing (eVTOL) vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­ers to enable safe, sus­tain­able and effi­cient flight oper­a­tions in urban and sub­ur­ban envi­ron­ments, and is a first mover in the indus­try in key mar­kets includ­ing APAC, EMEA and the Amer­i­c­as. Sky­ports is also play­ing a key role in the devel­op­ment of reg­u­la­tion and leg­is­la­tion to enable the advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try.

1) “A mile­stone year for future air mobil­i­ty”, McK­in­sey & Co. Retrieved from: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/aerospace-and-defense/our-insights/future-air-mobility-blog/a‑milestone-year-for-future-air-mobility

2) “RPAS and AAM Roadmap Con­sul­ta­tion”, Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment Civ­il Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Author­i­ty.
https://consultation.casa.gov.au/stakeholder-engagement-group/rpas-and-aam-roadmap-consultation/

3) “Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty: Mar­ket study for APAC”, Roland Berg­er, https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media/Files/R/Rolls- Royce/documents/news/press-releases/rre-apac-aam-study-16–02-2022-v2.pdf

4) “Work­ing togeth­er to sup­port advanced avi­a­tion indus­try”, Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment Depart­ment of Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port, Region­al Devel­op­ment and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions. https://www.infrastructure.gov.au/department/media/news/working-together-support-advanced-
avi­a­tion-indus­try