Skyports Infrastructure has partnered with Dubai-headquartered vertical aviation products and services provider Unified Aviation to provide a cost-effective, versatile infrastructure solution for air taxi take off and landings.

The collaboration leverages Unified Aviation's Modular Environmentally Sustainable Helipad (MESH) advanced landing platforms and Skyports' expertise in vertiport development, planning, regulation and operations. The agreement enables Skyports to deploy take off and landing infrastructure where and when needed, using prefabricated, modular, fast-build technology with integrated power, solar charging, lighting, safety, drainage and fire suppression features.

The move advances Skyports' Agile Vertiport Network (AVN) strategy, which envisions a varied and responsive infrastructure network. The AVN will comprise vertiports and landing sites tailored to environmental, network and customer requirements.

Skyports CEO Duncan Walker says: “Scalable, flexible and rapidly deployable vertiport infrastructure is critically important to accelerating AAM service roll-out, particularly in the early years of the industry. Our partnership with Unified Aviation brings specialised expertise in integrated heliport and vertiport design and training to reduce time to market and provide cost-effective, pre-certified landing sites. Our Agile Vertiport Network strategy solves some of the complex considerations when developing AAM networks, providing the vertiport solutions for any given location.”

Skyports' principal vertiports, which will include facilities such as passenger terminal, charging infrastructure and MRO, will be situated at major hubs such as airports, shopping malls and metro stations or where otherwise required. These sites, and the wider network, will be augmented by peripheral landing sites in suburban, lower throughput or short-term demand locations, for which Skyports would deploy the MESH system.

This innovative infrastructure solution will be demonstrated at Unified Aviation's Dubai South location, which will double as an operations staff training facility. The technology will then be rolled out globally with Skyports' vertiport product, with various use cases including ground, elevated and floating options.

Mark Trotter, managing director, Unified Aviation, comments: “Our MESH system has been designed with the future in mind. It can cater for today's helicopters and the future AAM ecosystem, enabling hybrid operations where needed. Our partnership with Skyports will help expand and further establish this innovative system going forward. MESH is built with sustainability in mind, using sustainable materials and the modular nature creates an excellent flexible and rapidly deployable solution.”