“Will Dubai Airshow be Catalyst for Electric Air Taxi Commercialisation in 2026?”

At some instant in an emerg­ing new mar­ket there is a trig­ger point — a cat­a­lyst, a hap­pen­ing — that revi­talis­es major investors; wows the media; cap­tures the public’s imag­i­na­tion; and woos the estab­lish­ment to final­ly accept a major new busi­ness dis­rup­tor. Will next week’s Dubai air­show in the UAE, be that moment when the pup­pet mas­ters of the glob­al sys­tem pro­claim: “THE ELECTRIC AIR TAXI INDUSTRY HAS LANDED!” 

Since the Covid lock­down end­ed, sim­i­lar drone flight tri­als con­tin­ue as in some end­less loop, where BVLOS, in a major­i­ty of cas­es, still remains a dis­tant dream. While fly­ing taxis have made progress, some eVTOL com­pa­nies have fall­en by the way­side, for until actu­al com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion begins, a new indus­try is vul­ner­a­ble to col­laps­ing before it even begins. 

It feels both mar­kets require an ele­phan­tine boost right now. Could the Dubai Air­show be that zephyr of mag­ic?

What We Know (eVTOLs)

Fly­ing Taxi and relat­ed com­pa­nies exhibit­ing include:-

: Joby Avi­a­tion (U.S)

: Archer Avi­a­tion (US) 

: Autocraft (UAE)

: Eanan (UAE)

: Fal­con Ser­vices (UAE)

: EHang (Chi­na)

: WeFly (Chi­na) 

: Trans­Fu­ture Avi­a­tion (Chi­na)

: Aut­oFlight (Chi­na)

: Sky­ports (UK)

: Sar­la Avi­a­tion (India)

Please Watch Video

First sur­prise is no BETA Tech­nolo­gies on dis­play after last week’s fan­fare flota­tion on the NYSE, but wait… will the com­pa­ny be a part of the first-ever live eVTOL demon­stra­tions to be held at the Air­show? It is unclear which com­pa­nies are par­tic­i­pat­ing, although Joby, Archer, EHang and Aut­oFlight seem shoe-ins. Will BETA sneak in?

Since Sep­tem­ber, the even­t’s organ­is­ers have promised that elec­tric air taxis will take cen­tre stage. This should offer increased glob­al media pub­lic­i­ty, but until com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion actu­al­ly begins in the Mid­dle East, the cycle of ‘could be’s’ and ‘may be’s’ will con­tin­ue and the pub­lic who are increas­ing­ly behind the con­cept may sim­ply think, ‘Here we go again.’

Dubai Air­show 2025: “Fly­ing Taxis To Take Cen­tre Stage at World’s Largest AAM Show­case”

Leav­ing aside some ‘Act of God’, com­mer­cial flights will begin in Dubai and start in 2026. But which month?

Here, there are con­flict­ing view­points.

In a recent inter­view with Sky­ports Founder and CEO, Dun­can Walk­er, whose com­pa­ny is present­ly con­struct­ing sev­er­al ver­ti­ports in Dubai, he claims next March.

Please Watch Video

A sur­prise being that none of the eVTOLs suf­fi­cient­ly devel­oped have gained the nec­es­sary air reg­u­la­to­ry cer­ti­fi­ca­tion to fly com­mer­cial flights… yet. Sure­ly, it is more real­is­tic to expect the Sum­mer of 2026 or ear­ly Autumn? That appears to be the gen­er­al con­sen­sus, at present.

Com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion to Begin in 2026 — TICK.

Safe­ty, safe­ty, safe­ty is the mantra of the gen­er­al avi­a­tion indus­try and quite so, yet are eVTOLs not already more safe than heli­copters, for exam­ple, with their var­i­ous redun­dan­cy fea­tures includ­ing mul­ti­ple motors; back­up flight con­trols and redun­dant pow­er sys­tems in case of com­po­nent fail­ure? These fail-safe fea­tures allow the air­craft to con­tin­ue fly­ing or land safe­ly if a pri­ma­ry sys­tem mal­func­tions. And there is plen­ty of sand to land on, if… a prob­lem occurs.

Safe­ty — TICK.

Imag­ine the media excite­ment when those first com­mer­cial flights take off from a Sky­ports ver­ti­port in Dubai, no doubt with UAE rulers, VIPs, and Sheikhs on-board. The heady days of avi­a­tion in the 1960s may return, when glam­our and lux­u­ry took hold and air­line com­pa­nies mass-pro­duced mer­chan­dise for their pas­sen­gers. Any­one for a toy mod­el of an Archer Mid­night air­craft or a Joby T‑shirt sold in one of the ver­ti­ports, no doubt for a high price? 

Glob­al Media Pub­lic­i­ty and Glam­our — TICK.

As for lux­u­ry, umm… not sure, although Joby has stat­ed, it may con­struct more lux­u­ri­ous pas­sen­ger cab­ins specif­i­cal­ly for the Mid­dle East mar­ket.

At the begin­ning, it is like­ly pas­sen­gers will be queu­ing up for a flight, more for the nov­el­ty, no doubt. And while ini­tial jour­neys may be expen­sive, the num­ber of mil­lion­aires flood­ing in to the Mid­dle East region from coun­tries like the UK, Rus­sia and Amer­i­ca, to take up res­i­dence, mon­ey should not be a prob­lem. The pop­u­la­tion of the region is increas­ing at a tsuna­mi rate along with the mon­ey this is attract­ing.

Pub­lic Inter­est — TICK.

Both Archer and Joby car­ried out tri­al flights in the UAE this week lead­ing up to the Dubai Air­show

Apart from Dubai, oth­er areas with­in the UAE are in hot pur­suit. There is a fed­er­a­tion of sev­en indi­vid­ual emi­rates: Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Shar­jah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah. 

This week it was announced that Abu Dhabi Air­ports and Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture are devel­op­ing its first com­mer­cial ver­ti­port net­work, with more than 10 sites to be built at loca­tions across the Emi­rate, includ­ing Zayed Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (AUH) and Al Bateen Exec­u­tive Air­port (AZI).

The net­work will con­nect key urban, busi­ness and tourism hubs, includ­ing Zayed Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, Al Bateen Exec­u­tive Air­port and Yas Island to Saadiy­at and Abu Dhabi Island, enabling fast, clean and effi­cient air trans­port across the emi­rate. Fur­ther sites and inter­ci­ty routes will be announced in sub­se­quent phas­es.

Each ver­ti­port will be ful­ly inte­grat­ed into Abu Dhabi’s wider trans­port sys­tem, fea­tur­ing ground trans­port and dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture, through the smart sys­tems of the Inte­grat­ed Trans­port Cen­tre (Abu Dhabi Mobil­i­ty) and the net­work of Abu Dhabi Air­ports, ensur­ing seam­less mul­ti­modal con­nec­tions.

And with lit­tle or no red tape and no NIMBIES both­er­ing such devel­op­ments, the pace of con­struc­tion should be swift. 

Speed of Con­struc­tion — TICK 

Mean­while, Sau­di Ara­bia has no wish to be left behind. Only today news broke that Joby Avi­a­tion has con­firmed plans for the rapid deploy­ment of its elec­tric air taxi in the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia, after sign­ing a new mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with the Gen­er­al Author­i­ty of Civ­il Avi­a­tion (GACA).

The part­ner­ship will use Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards as a foun­da­tion to cre­ate a stream­lined approval process for Joby’s eVTOL air­craft in Sau­di Ara­bia, help­ing to posi­tion the King­dom at the fore­front of advanced air mobil­i­ty in the Mid­dle East and across the world. 

Oman and Qatar have also shown inter­est in deliv­er­ing elec­tric air taxi net­works.

A graph­ic image of one of the ver­ti­ports being devel­oped in Dubai (Cred­it: Dubai Media Office)

Next week is going to be a very excit­ing week for those involved in the eVTOL indus­try. While the Dubai Air­show promis­es so much, the obvi­ous ques­tion is: Will it deliv­er? How much news of Mid­dle East col­lab­o­ra­tions, sales, ver­ti­port con­struc­tion and the like might there be? And will a def­i­nite date be con­firmed for the world’s first com­mer­cial eVTOL flight in 2026?

Key­board war­riors around the world are eager­ly await­ing.

(Top image: Joby Avi­a­tion S4)

For the lat­est news, insights and con­tent regard­ing the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty mar­ket, please join the fol­low­ing eVTOL Insights chan­nels: What­sApp, Face­book, Insta­gram, Spo­ti­fy, Apple Pod­casts, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.