Skyports Infrastructure and Linden Airport Services Corporation to Transform Miami’s Watson Island Heliport into AAM facility

Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture and Lin­den Air­port Ser­vices Cor­po­ra­tion have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) to devel­op and mod­ernise Miami’s Wat­son Island Heli­port, pro­vid­ing the city with an imme­di­ate land­ing zone for heli­copters and a future hub for eVTOL air­craft.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion takes foun­da­tion­al steps to trans­form the exist­ing, his­toric site into one of the nation’s most advanced urban avi­a­tion facil­i­ties, sup­port­ing both tra­di­tion­al rotor­craft oper­a­tions and next gen­er­a­tion eVTOL air­craft.

Pulling togeth­er indus­try lead­ing rela­tion­ships and part­ner­ships, the project will include a com­pre­hen­sive devel­op­ment plan, engage­ment with heli­copter and eVTOL oper­a­tors, col­lab­o­ra­tion with real estate devel­op­ers and prepa­ra­tions for future eVTOL ser­vices.

Rob­bie Ladov, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of US Heli­ports and Ver­ti­ports at Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture, said: Wat­son Island is an extra­or­di­nary asset for Mia­mi and a piv­otal loca­tion for the future of urban avi­a­tion.

“By part­ner­ing with Lin­den, we are com­bin­ing Sky­ports’ glob­al lead­er­ship in sky­port devel­op­ment with Linden’s decades-long ded­i­ca­tion to prepar­ing this site. Togeth­er, we are lay­ing the foun­da­tion for a next gen­er­a­tion facil­i­ty that will serve the region for decades to come.”

With a rich avi­a­tion his­to­ry reach­ing back to the ear­ly 20^th cen­tu­ry, Wat­son Island occu­pies a unique­ly strate­gic posi­tion in Miami’s urban avi­a­tion net­work, once serv­ing as a key hub for ver­ti­cal avi­a­tion in the city.

It is the clos­est land­ing zone to Mia­mi Beach and lies just min­utes from Down­town Mia­mi, Brick­ell, Fish­er Island, Star, Palm and Hibis­cus Islands, and the Port of Mia­mi.

The facility’s cen­tral loca­tion posi­tions the site as a crit­i­cal hub for ver­ti­cal avi­a­tion, pro­vid­ing unmatched acces­si­bil­i­ty for res­i­dents, vis­i­tors, and com­mer­cial oper­a­tors alike. As eVTOL oper­a­tions launch in the com­ing years, South Flori­da will be a lead­ing mar­ket glob­al­ly, fur­ther under­scor­ing the impor­tance of the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty facil­i­ty.

Lin­den Air­port Ser­vices Cor­po­ra­tion has been com­mit­ted to the Wat­son Island Heli­port project for more than 20 years, since being award­ed the orig­i­nal heli­port con­tract.

Over this time, Lin­den has worked tire­less­ly to secure FAA and FDOT approvals, with the final local occu­pan­cy per­mits now in process. Its decades of expe­ri­ence man­ag­ing Lin­den Air­port in New Jer­sey, a major heli­copter base serv­ing oper­a­tors through­out the New York met­ro­pol­i­tan area, com­ple­ment Sky­ports’ oper­a­tional exper­tise as man­ag­er of the Down­town Sky­port (JRB), the world’s busiest civil­ian com­mer­cial heli­port.

Togeth­er, Sky­ports and Lin­den will deter­mine the high­est and best use of the Wat­son Island Heli­port, restor­ing it to its for­mer promi­nence and ensur­ing it is devel­oped in a way that sup­ports the safe, effi­cient, and scal­able emer­gence of AAM in Mia­mi.

Paul Dud­ley, CEO of Lin­den Air­port Ser­vices Cor­po­ra­tion added: “Our com­mit­ment to Wat­son Island spans more than 20 years, nav­i­gat­ing reg­u­la­to­ry and oper­a­tional mile­stones to get this site ready for the future. Part­ner­ing with Sky­ports enables us to advance the heli­port into a mod­ern sky­port, engage key avi­a­tion and real estate part­ners, and help estab­lish Mia­mi as a leader in advanced air mobil­i­ty.”