WATCH: World’s first commercial vertiport by Dubai International Airport reaches technical completion

The world’s first com­mer­cial ver­ti­port sit­u­at­ed by Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port has reached tech­ni­cal com­ple­tion and is now ready to han­dle eVTOL air­craft.

In an announce­ment made yes­ter­day (Thurs­day) by Dubai’s Roads and Trans­port Author­i­ty (RTA) and Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture (Sky­ports), a full tour and demon­stra­tion of the ver­ti­port was pro­vid­ed to His High­ness Sheikh Ham­dan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Mak­toum, Crown Prince of Dubai, Deputy Prime Min­is­ter, Min­is­ter of Defence and Chair­man of the Exec­u­tive Coun­cil of Dubai.

This includ­ed a sim­u­la­tion of the future pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence and a look behind the scenes at how elec­tric air taxi oper­a­tions would func­tion in prac­tice.

His Excel­len­cy Mat­tar Al Tay­er, Direc­tor Gen­er­al, Chair­man of the Board of Exec­u­tive Direc­tors, Dubai’s Roads and Trans­port Author­i­ty said: “The deliv­ery of the Air Taxi Sta­tion by Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture near Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port reflects the qual­i­ta­tive progress made by RTA in advanc­ing a smart and sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem, built on the inte­gra­tion of var­i­ous trans­port modes and aligned with glob­al trans­for­ma­tions in urban mobil­i­ty.

“This step paves the way for expand­ing the devel­op­ment of Air Taxi ver­ti­ports across the emi­rate, ensur­ing the deliv­ery of advanced air mobil­i­ty ser­vices to res­i­dents and vis­i­tors, while enhanc­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty between key areas, busi­ness cen­tres, and tourist des­ti­na­tions.”

Ver­ti­ports: a new class of infra­struc­ture for a new class of trans­porta­tion

Span­ning four floors with a foot­print of 3,100m², the ver­ti­port inte­grates the main pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal and cen­tral flight oper­a­tions all under one roof. Fea­tur­ing two ded­i­cat­ed take-off and land­ing areas, it is equipped with the lat­est tech­nolo­gies and infra­struc­ture specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored for eVTOL air­craft.

This includes the Joby Avi­a­tion devel­oped Glob­al Elec­tric Avi­a­tion Charg­ing Sys­tem (“GEACS”), fast-charg­ing equip­ment, the first to ever be fit­ted at a com­mer­cial ver­ti­port. Ultra-fast charg­ing is cen­tral to oper­at­ing air taxis at an acces­si­ble price, and is essen­tial to the suc­cess of Dubai’s future air taxi net­work.

The ver­ti­port can also han­dle con­ven­tion­al heli­copter traf­fic, using a pio­neer­ing hybrid reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work devel­oped in part­ner­ship with the Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (GCAA).

With a view to future net­work expan­sion and full net­work util­i­sa­tion the ver­ti­port is designed for high-capac­i­ty oper­a­tions, capa­ble of han­dling up to 170,000 pas­sen­gers annu­al­ly and up to 42,000 air­craft move­ments. The ver­ti­port also pro­vides excel­lent inter­modal con­nec­tiv­i­ty, being direct­ly acces­si­ble to the Emi­rates Metro Sta­tion and fea­tur­ing an inte­grat­ed mul­ti­storey car park.

The first node in Dubai’s air taxi net­work, the ver­ti­port by Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port is the network’s flag­ship ver­ti­port, and will act as the pri­ma­ry hub.

Dun­can Walk­er, CEO of Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture, said: “With the world’s first com­mer­cial ver­ti­port now being in a tech­ni­cal posi­tion to take eVTOL flights, we are see­ing avi­a­tion his­to­ry in the mak­ing. After years of plan­ning and in depth design, this new class of infra­struc­ture brings togeth­er the lat­est tech­nolo­gies and inno­va­tions that will change how peo­ple move around their cities.”

The pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence of the future

The tech­ni­cal com­ple­tion mile­stone event was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate to His High­ness the full end-to-end air taxi pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence, which facil­i­tates a rapid pas­sen­ger turn­around time from arrival to take-off.

This includes:

• A dig­i­tal-first book­ing expe­ri­ence with seats book­able through Joby Aviation’s ded­i­cat­ed book­ing app
  
• Auto­mat­ed dig­i­tal check-in to pro­vide a fric­tion­less pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence
  
• Pre­mi­um pas­sen­ger facil­i­ties that max­imise com­fort while wait­ing for flights

• Effi­cient board­ing flows that pro­vide a smooth tran­si­tion to the take-off and land­ing areas, min­imis­ing pas­sen­ger wait times

Net­work expan­sion under­way

The ver­ti­port by Dubai Inter­na­tion­al Air­port will serve as the first and flag­ship oper­a­tional node in a broad­er net­work that will con­nect key des­ti­na­tions across Dubai, with fur­ther nodes in devel­op­ment at Dubai Mari­na, Dubai Mall and Palm Jumeirah.

The sec­ond node, at Dubai Mari­na, is cur­rent­ly under con­struc­tion, with con­struc­tion at Dubai Mall and Palm Jumeirah set to begin in the com­ing months.

Air­craft readi­ness in the lead up to com­mer­cial oper­a­tions

Joby Avi­a­tion con­tin­ues to advance its flight-test­ing pro­gramme and oper­a­tional readi­ness through a con­sis­tent sched­ule of tri­als and pub­lic demon­stra­tions.

In June 2025, the com­pa­ny com­plet­ed a series of pilot­ed test flights of its eVTOL Air Taxi in Margham, val­i­dat­ing air­craft per­for­mance under local envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions.

These tri­als were con­duct­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the RTA, Dubai Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, and Dubai Air Nav­i­ga­tion Ser­vices.

The pro­gramme also includ­ed the first UAE pilot­ed flights between two locations—Margham and Al Mak­toum Inter­na­tion­al Airport—alongside dai­ly flight demon­stra­tions at the Dubai Air­show 2025.

Antho­ny El-Khoury, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er, UAE, Joby Avi­a­tion, said: “The com­ple­tion of this ver­ti­port by our part­ners at Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture marks a major mile­stone in bring­ing air taxi ser­vice to Dubai.

“Togeth­er with the RTA, we’re proud to cel­e­brate this impor­tant step and the progress it rep­re­sents toward launch­ing oper­a­tions. We look for­ward to begin­ning com­mer­cial flights and to deliv­er­ing fast, qui­et, and sus­tain­able air trav­el for Dubai’s res­i­dents and vis­i­tors.”