Page 14 - AAA January / February 2023 Latest Magazine | GBP

roadmap for urban air mobility, published According to industry analysts, more than 200 companies are
in 2020, calls for commercialization of UAM currently working on Vertiport projects in various regions. In
operations by 2025. The FAA has also signed Europe, the Aeroporto di Roma (FCO), Aeroporto di Venezia (VCE),
similar partnerships with regulatory authori- Aeroports de la Cote d’Azur (NCE), and Aeroporto Guglielmo
ties in Japan, the UK, Canada, Australia, and Marconi di Bologna (BLQ) have launched Urban Blue, a joint
New Zealand. company for the development of UAM infrastructure at the inter-
national level. The company will rely on an existing partnership
UK-based Urban-Air Port is focused on build- with Volocopter, but will also be supported by major investors,
ing vertiports, where air taxis will be able to such as EDF, Invest, and the shareholder of Aeroports de la Cote
take-off, land, get charged and have mainte- d’Azur. Urban Blue plans to build a vertiport in Venice by 2024
nance work done. The company is planning to and then connect other French and Italian airports via UAM.
construct around 200 vertiports around the
world over in the next five years; its first oper- In South Korea, oil refiner GS Caltex and five companies in the
ational prototype launched in April last year. telecom, mobility, and airline businesses have formed a consor-
Skyports, which has signed a letter of intent tium to take part in the Transport Ministry-led K-UAM Grand
(LOI) with AirAsia to deploy air taxi infrastruc- Challenge program; the initiative is intended to develop and
ture in Malaysia, is also working with Joby operate air vehicles and airspace management services.
Aviation to develop a Living Lab passenger
terminal to test technologies and procedures Experts’ View
for eVTOL flights. “I’m not quite as bullish as some of the public statements around
Italian conglomerate Leonardo is working how quickly we can ramp up the system, but in the medium
together with Aeroporti di Roma (AdR) in to long term—ten years out—I’m actually quite bullish,” says
Italy to equip vertiports with technological Riedel. “I think this is a mode of transportation that will even-
solutions. Leonardo, which is noted for its air tually become quite frequently used. It will be safe, it will save
traffic control (ATC) technologies and solu- many of us time, it will be sustainable—so there’s a bright future
tions for Air Traffic Control (ATC) and airport to look forward to.”
management, is involved in the development People are ready for flying taxis, says Kloss. “Across geogra-
of an unmanned aircraft traffic management phies, more than 15 to 20 percent of survey respondents say
system for drones and has conducted a series they can definitely imagine switching from their current mode
of experiments with remotely piloted vehicles of mobility to a flying-taxi service in the future. Passengers are
in the field of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM). spending more than $400 billion globally for taxi services every
With ‘UrbanV’, Aeroporti di Roma is engaged year. E-hailing is another $100 billion on top of that. If you now
in designing and managing ground infra- imagine that flying taxis can capture some of this market share
structure for AAM projects and is developing and become a real alternative to the taxi by 2030, the market
a network of vertiports for Rome, Venice, and opportunity is in the range of several billion US dollars.”
the Côte d’Azur.
14 | JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2023 WWW.GBP.COM.SG/AAA