SMG’s Consulting ‘AAM Reality Index’ welcomes new addition — Vertiports: Interview with Founder Sergio Cecutta

evtolinsights.com last inter­viewed Ser­gio Cecut­ta, the founder of SMG Con­sult­ing pio­neer­ing ‘AAM Real­i­ty Index’ exact­ly a year ago. This reg­u­lar­ly updat­ed index mir­rors the eVTOL industry’s devel­op­ment and progress, toward the ulti­mate goal of pro­duc­ing cer­ti­fied air­craft at scale.

Found­ed in Decem­ber 2020, the ini­tial chart of 14 OEMs (Orig­i­nal Equip­ment Man­u­fac­tur­ers) now stands at 25, an addi­tion of 11 com­pa­nies in just 18 months. The num­ber con­tin­ues to grow at a rapid rate.

Q&A: Ser­gio Cecut­ta goes through SMG Consulting’s AAM Real­i­ty Index and its biggest update to-date

This month Cecut­ta has added ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture com­pa­nies to his index. Under the head­ing AIR Index (AAM Infra­struc­ture Readi­ness), ini­tial­ly, five have been includ­ed: Fer­rovial, Urban Blue, Urban-Air Port, Sky­ports, Sky­portz.

Below is a link to FAQs about the AIR Index.

https://aamrealityindex.com/aam-infrastructure-index‑1

Cecut­ta dis­cuss­es this lat­est addi­tion.

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Chris Stonor Asks The Ques­tions

Why aren’t Urban-Air Port (UAP) and Sky­ports at the top of the chart when they’re the most active com­pa­nies, at present?

Both are work­ing on many great projects and both have expe­ri­enced teams. How­ev­er, the index looks at the readi­ness of all the infra­struc­ture com­pa­nies to roll out com­mer­cial ver­ti­port net­works across the globe. This includes past expe­ri­ence of build­ing and/or man­ag­ing air­ports. Cap­i­tal is also cru­cial to the devel­op­ment of large net­works.

Do you see oth­er ver­ti­port man­u­fac­tur­ers join­ing the Index soon?

We are cur­rent­ly work­ing to include many more com­pa­nies in the next release. We have been pos­i­tive­ly sur­prised by how many com­pa­nies have reached out to us to share infor­ma­tion about their work on AAM (Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty) infra­struc­ture.

There are none men­tioned so far cov­er­ing Chi­na, where EHang will be one of the first eVTOL com­pa­nies to gain full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

In Chi­na, we believe that ver­ti­ports and net­works in the coun­try will be home built. We await infor­ma­tion.

What of South Amer­i­ca where eVTOL com­pa­nies like Eve are to become very active. Who will be build­ing the infra­struc­ture there?

Recent­ly both Eve and Ver­ti­cal have announced sep­a­rate part­ner­ships with Cor­po­ración Améri­ca Air­ports whom we see as an impor­tant play­er in South Amer­i­ca and world­wide.

I have been fol­low­ing the Index since it first appeared and always won­dered why you don’t include poten­tial eVTOL sales, espe­cial­ly when some are con­firmed, to your equa­tion for rank­ing com­pa­nies.

As for orders, there are three main rea­sons why we have not includ­ed them (although we do track them sep­a­rate­ly).

Most of the order book is not firm (95+ per­cent). Even for firm orders, they can get can­celled and sev­er­al com­pa­nies in the past with large back­logs have failed. It is not pos­si­ble to com­pare com­pa­nies that sell vehi­cles to third par­ties with com­pa­nies that plan to oper­ate them.

Back to UAP who say they’ll be con­struct­ing 200 ver­ti­ports around the world over the next com­ing years. Once again, does that not have an influ­ence on the Index?

We do not con­sid­er orders in our AAM Real­i­ty Index, so we are not con­sid­er­ing com­mit­ments in the AIR Index. What is very impor­tant for us is the actu­al deploy­ment of ver­ti­port net­works across the world.

Are you con­sid­er­ing the con­ver­sion of heli­ports or the tops of mul­ti-storey car parks into ver­ti­ports? Will these have an influ­ence on the Index? Do you feel there will be suf­fi­cient U.S ver­ti­ports con­struct­ed by 2024 when Joby Avi­a­tion is prob­a­bly the first to gain full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion?

The Index tracks all ver­ti­ports, whether they are a con­ver­sion of exist­ing facil­i­ties or new builds. We believe that Joby will start with a net­work of four to five in the cho­sen launch city.

(Pic: METI/Ken Okuya­ma Design Image)

How sig­nif­i­cant will the Osa­ka Expo 2025 in Japan have on eVTOL and drone infra­struc­ture?

We believe this Expo will be a cat­a­lyst for AAM deploy­ment in Japan just as the Olympics in 2024 will be for Paris and Europe.

How many ver­ti­ports do you see being con­struct­ed between now and 2025?

Giv­en many com­pa­nies are work­ing on build­ing ver­ti­ports, I would expect the num­ber to be in the dou­ble dig­its.

How pop­u­lar has your AAM Real­i­ty Index become since you start­ed? What influ­ence does it have over the eVTOL indus­try?

We are very pleased with the recep­tion of the Index by the indus­try. It has become a point of entry to under­stand the OEM side of the AAM indus­try and a yard­stick to mea­sure progress toward the ulti­mate goal of pro­duc­ing cer­ti­fied air­craft at scale.

Is there any­thing else you would like to say?

I would like to con­clude by say­ing that AAM has been a breath of fresh air for the entire aero­space indus­try, bring­ing renewed inter­est, cap­i­tal and tal­ent. This ecosys­tem is very com­plex and is made of sev­er­al ele­ments, all need­ed at once to assure a suc­cess­ful launch and even­tu­al scal­ing of ser­vices. This is the rea­son why we intro­duced the AIR Index, to empha­sise the impor­tance of infra­struc­ture.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://smg-consulting.com/

https://aamrealityindex.com/aam-reality-index

June 2022 Index

https://aamrealityindex.com/f/advanced-air-mobility-reality-index-june-2022-release