UAE’s Air Chateau International “Pledges USD27.2 Million to Propel eVTOL Ecosystem Forward”

Dubai-based heli­copter oper­a­tor, Air Chateau Inter­na­tion­al, plans to invest 100 mil­lion UAE dirhams (USD27.2 mil­lion) over the next three years to enhance infra­struc­ture and advance the eVTOL ecosys­tem in the UAE, reports lucidityinsights.com.

Last Novem­ber, the com­pa­ny announced a USD500 mil­lion order with Archer Avi­a­tion to pur­chase 100 eVTOLs. The Mid­night Air­craft is expect­ed to be oper­a­tional in the UAE by 2026. Air Chateau aims to make it pos­si­ble for pas­sen­gers to trav­el from Dubai to Ras Al Khaimah in less than 30 min­utes.

Shilton Tony Iru­da­yaraj, co-Founder and CEO of Air Chateau, com­ment­ed, “The avi­a­tion indus­try in the UAE is rapid­ly adapt­ing advance­ments in Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty and we want to dri­ve this inno­va­tion fur­ther by build­ing the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture to make it hap­pen.” 

He con­tin­ued, “We are look­ing at a AED100 mil­lion infra­struc­ture invest­ment over the next two to three years, which will lay the foun­da­tion for a mixed devel­op­ment that includes ver­ti­ports, hangars, a train­ing acad­e­my for pilots and engi­neers, an MRO [main­te­nance, repair, over­haul] ser­vice, lux­u­ry lounges… in fact, every­thing that is need­ed to make us future-ready for eVTOL adop­tion.”

This invest­ment fol­lows Air Chateau’s part­ner­ship with Swedish ver­ti­port provider Kook­ie­jar (KOS) in late 2022 to estab­lish ver­ti­port oper­a­tions at Dubai World Cen­tral, mark­ing the ini­tial step towards real­is­ing their eVTOL plans.

Air Chateau is plan­ning to build six heliports/vertiports through­out the UAE. The com­pa­ny has short­list­ed 20 loca­tions of which six to eight will be finalised with work begin­ning before the end of this year with some of them being exist­ing facil­i­ties that will need to be upgrad­ed, while oth­ers are to be con­struct­ed from new. The com­pa­ny is look­ing to devel­op them in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed areas.

Iru­da­yaraj explained, “These heli­ports will be hybrid and once com­plet­ed can be used as both heli­ports and ver­ti­ports. This will help the air ecosys­tem to achieve more robust growth.”

Air Chateau is cer­ti­fied by the Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty of the UAE and oper­ates from Dubai Heli­park in Dubai South.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.airchateau.com

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