Partnership seeks to develop scalable urban air mobility infrastructure

Off-shore floating Urban-Air Port for Air Taxi Services

Urban-Air Port Ltd and Hyundai Air Mobility (a Hyundai Motor Group division) have announced a partnership to explore new infrastructure to enable urban air mobility (UAM). Hyundai plans to invest $1.5 billion in UAM over the next five years to create an air vehicle and the supporting mobility ecosystem for UAM operations.

Hyundai forecasts the air mobility market will be worth nearly $1.5 trillion over the next 20 years.

“As part of Hyundai Motor Group, our Air Mobility division is intent on supporting the development of human-centred cities through innovation,” said Dr. Jaiwon Shin, Head of Hyundai Air Mobility.

Pamela Cohn, COO of Hyundai Air Mobility, added: “There is often a strong focus on the vehicles, but without coordination and investment in other parts of the ecosystem, UAM is just a flying science project. Infrastructure is one of the crucial areas of the broader ecosystem that will bring aerial mobility to communities around the world. We are excited to partner with Urban-Air Port and UK communities to explore what this infrastructure of the future will look like.”

The Urban-Air Port design reportedly has a 60 per cent smaller footprint than a traditional heliport or nearest-state-of-the-art ‘vertiports’, allowing for installation in space-limited urban sites. Its modular flat-pack structure is said to be cost-effective, transportable and rapidly deployable.

Ricky Sandhu, CEO of Urban-Air Port, said: “We are extremely proud to announce our partnership with Hyundai Air Mobility, as we embark on bringing together world-class electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle OEMs, passenger and logistics service operators, and our physical and digital infrastructure. We believe our unique, flexible and sustainable turn-key approach will help unlock and propel a clean, future UAM mobility ecosystem, both here in the UK and around the world for multiple sectors.”

Hyundai Air Mobility and Urban-Air Port plan to invest in development of a full-scale prototype for live eVTOL demonstrations. Two UK cities have already signed on to support development in 2021, including what will reportedly be the UK’s first.