UAP, Nalwa Aero Announce Partnership “to Revolutionise Advanced Air Mobility in India”

UK-based Urban-Air Port (UAP), a ver­ti­port builder, and Nal­wa Aero, an eVTOL devel­op­er locat­ed in India, announced this week a long-term part­ner­ship to enter the Indi­an mar­ket, reports a press release.

The release states, “The alliance aims to devel­op pur­pose-built, scal­able and mul­ti-modal infra­struc­ture to sup­port India’s rapid­ly expand­ing avi­a­tion mar­ket, align­ing with gov­ern­ment poli­cies and the grow­ing demand for air trav­el.”

The col­lab­o­ra­tion will accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of India’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) ecosys­tem, by com­bin­ing Nal­wa Aero’s inno­v­a­tive NALWA 5X eVTOL air­craft with Urban-Air Port’s ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture.

Key Objec­tives of the Part­ner­ship

: Mar­ket Expan­sion - The col­lab­o­ra­tion is to cap­i­talise on India’s grow­ing avi­a­tion sec­tor, where air trav­el pen­e­tra­tion is cur­rent­ly low (10–15 per­cent of the pop­u­la­tion fly annu­al­ly). With India’s avi­a­tion mar­ket pro­ject­ed to grow to 480 mil­lion pas­sen­gers by 2036 and an esti­mat­ed mar­ket val­ue of USD25 — USD40 bil­lion by 2033, the part­ner­ship aligns with ini­tia­tives like the government’s UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik) pro­gram and plans for heli­pads along high­ways.

: Gov­ern­ment Col­lab­o­ra­tion - The part­ners will pur­sue oppor­tu­ni­ties under the Indi­an government’s scheme to devel­op 1,000 heli­pads and drone zones every 50km along nation­al high­ways, posi­tion­ing Nal­wa Aero and Urban-Air Port as key con­trib­u­tors to India’s AAM ambi­tions.

: Com­pre­hen­sive AAM Solu­tions - The com­pa­nies are to devel­op coor­di­nat­ed prod­ucts, designs and ser­vices across the AAM val­ue chain includ­ing car­go, med­ical, pas­sen­ger and defence appli­ca­tions. This ini­tia­tive includes cre­at­ing a phys­i­cal show­case fea­tur­ing Urban-Air Port’s Air-One ver­ti­port inte­grat­ed with the NALWA 5X eVTOL.

: Mutu­al Com­mit­ment - UAP will offer Nal­wa pref­er­en­tial rights, for AAM infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment pro­grams in India, while the Indi­an com­pa­ny will pri­ori­tise deploy­ing its eVTOLs on Urban-Air Port’s plat­forms. Sim­i­lar­ly, Nal­wa will offer UAP first notice on ver­ti­port-relat­ed pro­grams.

Andrea Wu, CEO of Urban-Air Port, remarked, “India’s avi­a­tion mar­ket, the third-largest glob­al­ly, is poised for expo­nen­tial growth, dri­ven by a bur­geon­ing mid­dle class, ris­ing dis­pos­able incomes and gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives like UDAN.”

She con­tin­ued, “Han­dling 200 mil­lion pas­sen­gers annu­al­ly, yet rep­re­sent­ing only 4 per­cent of glob­al air traf­fic, India has immense poten­tial to leapfrog oth­er nations by inte­grat­ing AAM into its infra­struc­ture roll­out. This part­ner­ship posi­tions us to lead that trans­for­ma­tion.”

Urban-Air Port’s AirOne Ver­ti­port — Cus­tomis­able, Scaleable & Mod­u­lar

Phased Approach to Mar­ket Entry

Phase 1: Devel­op­ment of Indi­an Mar­ket Capa­bil­i­ties (2025)

•  Devel­op tai­lored mar­ket insights for AAM infra­struc­ture, focus­ing on oper­a­tional require­ments for aer­i­al car­go, med­ical and pas­sen­ger trans­port in urban and region­al set­tings, aligned with gov­ern­ment poli­cies.

•  Advance vehi­cle and infra­struc­ture R&D, with Nal­wa Aero design­ing the NALWA 5X eVTOL and Urban-Air Port devel­op­ing cus­tomised and use-case-spe­cif­ic ver­ti­ports.

•  Engage pri­vate indus­tries, local gov­ern­ments and reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties to define infra­struc­ture require­ments, includ­ing ver­ti­port design, net­work inte­gra­tion and charg­ing solu­tions.

•  Devel­op a reg­u­la­to­ry engage­ment strat­e­gy to enable cer­ti­fied oper­a­tions for car­go and pas­sen­ger ser­vices.

•  Cre­ate a dig­i­tal con­cept design for a stan­dard­ised, Nal­wa-oper­at­ed Urban-Air Port ‘show­case’ Air-One ver­ti­port.

Phase 2: Demon­stra­tion (2026)

•  Con­duct tech­nol­o­gy, reg­u­la­to­ry and busi­ness mod­el de-risk­ing activ­i­ties, includ­ing ground and flight demon­stra­tions to val­i­date infra­struc­ture and air­space man­age­ment require­ments.

•  Align with reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties to meet cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards for prod­ucts, pro­duc­tion process­es and oper­a­tions.

•  Devel­op oper­at­ing safe­ty stan­dards to ensure the health, safe­ty and wel­fare of all stake­hold­ers.

Phase 3: Deploy­ment (2026 and Beyond)

•  Deliv­er a ful­ly inte­grat­ed AAM infra­struc­ture solu­tion and ser­vice mod­el, com­pli­ant with all legal and reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments, to enable scal­able, cer­ti­fied oper­a­tions for car­go, med­ical, pas­sen­ger and defence appli­ca­tions.

Kul­jeet Singh Sand­hu

Kul­jeet Singh Sand­hu, CEO of Nal­wa Aero, explained, “Our mis­sion is to make Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty afford­able and acces­si­ble to every Indi­an. Part­ner­ing with Urban-Air Port, enables us to scale our busi­ness with a full-stack solu­tion of eVTOL air­craft and land­ing infra­struc­ture, tai­lored to the needs of the gov­ern­ment, our clients and the Indi­an mar­ket.”

Ricky Sand­hu, Founder and Exec­u­tive Chair­man of Urban-Air Port, added, “It is a great priv­i­lege to enter India’s dynam­ic avi­a­tion mar­ket, home to the world’s fastest-grow­ing air­line, Indi­Go. The Nal­wa Aero team aligns per­fect­ly with our pio­neer­ing approach. By com­bin­ing their mar­ket con­nec­tions with Urban-Air Port’s ver­ti­port exper­tise, we are well-posi­tioned to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment of India’s ambi­tious AAM vision.”

Back­ground

Nal­wa Aero was recent­ly found­ed in 2023 by Kul­jeet S. Sand­hu. The com­pa­ny is locat­ed in Mohali, Pun­jab. Its eVTOL, NALWA 5X, is a five-seater designed for urban and region­al mobil­i­ty.

The eVTOL has a max­i­mum speed of 400 km/h; a 6,000-metre ser­vice ceil­ing; and a 90-minute flight dura­tion, ide­al for com­mer­cial air taxis, med­ical evac­u­a­tion, car­go and mil­i­tary oper­a­tions. 

Col­lab­o­rat­ing with glob­al part­ners from the U.S, Ger­many, Aus­tralia, and Spain, the com­pa­ny aims to trans­form air trans­porta­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.urbanairport.com 

www.nalwa.aero

(Top image: Nal­wa 5X eVTOL)

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