Skyports Infrastructure and Korean Air partner to develop real world eVTOL operations technology

Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture and Kore­an Air have entered into a part­ner­ship to explore the devel­op­ment of a holis­tic tech­nol­o­gy plat­form for the man­age­ment of eVTOL air­craft oper­a­tions, cre­at­ing a sys­tem that will sup­port safe and effi­cient real-world com­mer­cial ser­vices.

The part­ner­ship was announced as a part of a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) between the two par­ties, which was signed dur­ing Drone Show Korea (DSK) today (Thurs­day) between Ankit Dass, Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer at Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture, and Kyung-Nam Kim, Man­ag­ing V.P, Head of R&D Cen­ter, Kore­an Air.

Dass said: “Whilst eVTOL air­craft devel­op­ment is pro­gress­ing at a good pace, there are still var­i­ous unknowns around how they would oper­ate and nav­i­gate effec­tive­ly in the real world envi­ron­ment. This part­ner­ship with Kore­an Air reflects our shared vision to cre­ate the tech­nolo­gies and oper­a­tional frame­works need­ed to bring Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty to life. 

“With Sky­ports hav­ing a ver­ti­port net­work under devel­op­ment in Dubai, where the world’s first full-scale com­mer­cial eVTOL ser­vice is planned, along­side devel­op­ing Korea’s first AAM net­work in Jeju Island, we have high­ly rel­e­vant future con­texts for poten­tial appli­ca­tions of such tech­nolo­gies.”

The new solu­tion will bring togeth­er lead­ing tech­nolo­gies that both organ­i­sa­tions already have in devel­op­ment – Sky­ports’ Ver­ti­port Automa­tion Sys­tem (VAS) will sup­port core ver­ti­port oper­a­tional capa­bil­i­ties, while Kore­an Air’s Air Con­trol & Rout­ing Orches­trat­ed Sky­way Sys­tem (ACROSS) plat­form will con­tribute flight oper­a­tions and traf­fic man­age­ment exper­tise.

The part­ner­ship will also explore approach­es to tech­ni­cal align­ment to sup­port future inter­op­er­abil­i­ty between Skyport’s VAS and flight oper­a­tions sys­tems. The devel­op­ment of the sys­tem will involve test­ing and val­i­da­tion, includ­ing joint demon­stra­tions and pilot pro­grams relat­ed to ver­ti­port oper­a­tions and AAM inte­gra­tion, with the longer-term ambi­tion of sup­port­ing scal­able solu­tions for the emerg­ing AAM indus­try.

Kwang-Oh Moon, Head of Future Tech­nol­o­gy Devel­op­ment Cen­ter, Kore­an Air, added: “ACROSS aims to pro­vide seam­less ser­vices in both flight oper­a­tion con­trol and low-alti­tude air traf­fic man­age­ment once AAM air­craft are com­mer­cialised.

“From a sys­tems per­spec­tive, close inte­gra­tion with ver­ti­ports, which will assume the role of tra­di­tion­al air­ports for com­mer­cial avi­a­tion, is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant. The syn­er­gy between Skyports’s infra­struc­ture and Korea Air’s ACROSS will set the glob­al stan­dard for AAM oper­a­tions.”

Togeth­er Sky­ports and Kore­an Air bring unique, com­pli­ment­ing areas of exper­tise. One of the world’s lead­ing air­lines, Kore­an Air spe­cial­izes in exist­ing flight oper­a­tions con­trol and traf­fic man­age­ment sys­tems, while Sky­ports spe­cialis­es in ver­ti­port tech­nolo­gies and oper­a­tional know-how, with ver­ti­port net­works under devel­op­ment around the globe.

Its Dubai ver­ti­port net­work is plan­ning com­mer­cial eVTOL oper­a­tions before the end of 2026, and it is con­struct­ing a par­al­lel net­work in Abu Dhabi. It also oper­ates the world’s busiest com­mer­cial heli­port in New York City, Down­town Sky­port, which it is tran­si­tion­ing to AAM, and is devel­op­ing Korea’s first ver­ti­port net­work in Jeju Island, which will see com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in 2028.