UAE Seeks To Establish Itself As AAM Hub In The Middle East

The United Arab Emirates has worked hard in recent years to transition its economy from dependence on oil to a focus on innovation and technology, most notably sending a small spacecraft called “Hope” to orbit Mars in 2021 as part of an ongoing scientific mission.

As the country gears up to host the Dubai Airshow Nov. 13-17, the UAE is building on its recent interest in futuristic mobility solutions with an ambitious plan to establish itself as a leader in advanced air mobility (AAM), including top-down initiatives related to vehicle manufacturing, infrastructure construction and operations.

• Archer, Beta, Eve and Joby plan to launch there by 2026
• Skyports and VPorts begin laying groundwork for vertiport infrastructure

The two largest emirates, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, both plan to launch urban air mobility (UAM) services by 2026, having identified a series of launch partners including operators, OEMs and infrastructure providers. They have also selected a series of launch routes and vertiport locations expected to become operational by mid-decade.

The latest push from the UAE to lay the groundwork for UAM services occurred in Abu Dhabi in October with the announcement of a planned Smart and Autonomous Vehicles Industry (SAVI) cluster.

Headquartered in Masdar City adjacent to Abu Dhabi International Airport, the cluster will provide global electric-vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) startups (including U.S. companies Archer and Joby Aviation) with access to academia, test zones, research labs, testing and certification facilities, workshops, hangars and manufacturing facilities.

Abu Dhabi says it wants the SAVI cluster to promote knowledge transfer and local economic development, accelerating commercialization and licensing by serving as a one-stop shop for certification, licensing, authorizations and intellectual property management.

Archer Chief Commercial Officer Nikhil Goel noted to Aviation Week three major goals related to the Abu Dhabi initiative. First, the company plans to launch services in 2026 across the entire UAE, including both Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Second, it is establishing an international headquarters in Abu Dhabi with a center for excellence focused on innovation. And third, Archer plans to start local manufacturing in the emirate in partnership with automaker Stellantis as well as local companies.

Goel also described several categories of passenger services that Archer plans to establish in the UAE. These include airport transfers to and from major hubs Dubai International, Abu Dhabi International and Al Maktoum International airports; commuting from suburbs to major cities, for example Sharjah to Dubai; intercity services between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, a roughly 80-km (50-mi.) route; and aerial tourism and sightseeing services.

“When we think about Abu Dhabi and the UAE, they really check all the boxes as far as what we’re looking for in a market to launch service,” Goel says. “They have lots of urban traffic, a fast-growing population, and perhaps most important, an extremely supportive government with huge sway over local industry and the ability to provide financing and capital. That’s important because taking a domestic company global is not cheap.”

Archer has partnered with Falcon Aviation, a UAE-based helicopter and aircraft charter and management company that will be operating the eVTOL air taxis on Archer’s behalf in Abu Dhabi. Falcon has previously partnered with Embraer spinoff Eve Air Mobility to operate in Dubai, including signing a letter of intent to operate up to 35 air taxis.

Joby Aviation is also participating in the SAVI cluster. “We welcome the opportunity to participate in the SAVI cluster . . . as we work toward our mission of delivering fast, quiet and convenient air taxi service in cities around the world,” Joby CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in a statement.

Chinese startup EHang—which recently received type certification for its uncrewed two-seater EH216-S—is also among the pack of OEMs aiming to establish a presence in the country. EHang has an agreement with holding company Monarch to establish a manufacturing facility and command-and-control center for UAM in Abu Dhabi. The partnership includes building vertiport infrastructure and training Emirati personnel, according to EHang.

Another U.S.-based electric aircraft startup, Odys Aviation, has also signed an agreement to establish a regional headquarters and high-volume assembly plant in Abu Dhabi. The company is developing a hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft capable of carrying nine passengers up to 1,200 km.

The UAE government has moved to facilitate future cargo experimentation, too, having issued UPS a temporary license in March to test electric aircraft for cargo operations provided by U.S. startup Beta Technologies.

Singapore-based startup EVFLy also plans to launch eVTOL operations in the country using Chinese startup AutoFlight’s Prosperity passenger and cargo aircraft.

Infrastructure

In February, the Dubai government approved a proposal from London-based startup Skyports Infrastructure and the Dubai Road and Transport Authority to develop a network of four initial vertiport sites in the emirate for 2026. The initial facilities would connect four main areas of the city: Downtown Dubai via the Burj Khalifa, Dubai Marina, Dubai International Airport and Palm Jumeirah.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, the UAE’s prime minister, has personally approved the prototype design for the first vertiport at Dubai International, which will consist of a multilevel structure with a rooftop outfitted with takeoff and landing pads and vehicle chargers. The facilities will also be integrated with other forms of transit, including the Emirates Metro Station.

Elsewhere in the UAE, Montreal-based infrastructure startup VPorts signed a memorandum of understanding late last year to build a vertiport at the international airport in the emirate of Ras Al Khaimah (RAK). The vertiport is planned for a 10,000-m² (107,000-ft.²) site and to handle all types of eVTOL aircraft.

By 2030, VPorts aims to expand its vertiport network to include all major industrial zones across the UAE. The company says its network will concentrate on sites that maximize multimodal connectivity such as RAK, Dubai South, Jebel Ali, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.

The RAK vertiport will be connected via a dedicated UAM corridor to an experimental AAM integrator center that VPorts plans to establish in Dubai for the purpose of proving out new technologies. The company has signed a 25-year lease agreement to construct the integrator on a 37,000-m² site within the Mohammed bin Rashid Aerospace Hub at Dubai South.

The facility, which includes dedicated airspace for flight testing and a vertiport operations control center for uncrewed traffic management, is intended to serve as a testing ground and collaboration zone for OEMs, infrastructure companies and air traffic management platforms, according to VPorts founder and CEO Fetih Chebil.

“Within AAM we have three pillars: the OEMs, the infrastructure people and the air traffic management integration, but right now these are all working in silos,” Chebil tells Aviation Week. “The idea behind our integrator center is to bring these players together in one place where they can flight-test vehicles alongside other stakeholders from this ecosystem.”

VPorts’ network in the UAE is mainly intended for cargo operations, Chebil says, adding that he expects passenger services will take longer to materialize. “Today flying people over Dubai with an eVTOL is not a viable business case,” he says, citing a lack of infrastructure development and regulatory uncertainty. “Passengers will come later, but first we will prove out the cargo business.”

While there will only be a small number of dedicated vertiport locations operational by launch in 2026, it is likely that operators can make use of the extensive network of existing helipad infrastructure to serve as additional nodes in their air taxi networks, Archer’s Goel says.

“I think overall there are already over 100 existing helicopter pads across Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and there’s numerous companies that provide helicopter operations,” Goel says. “So the underlying groundwork is already there. We will partner with others to build additional infrastructure as well, but there’s already a really robust route network that we can tap into with eVTOLs.”