AutoFlight has unveiled what it calls an Integrated Sea-Air Low-Altitude Economy Solution, a zero-carbon water-based green vertiport that extends eVTOL infrastructure across vast water areas. It addresses key challenges such as difficult site selection, slow deployment and complex take off and landing operations.

The solution supports five major use cases: energy platform maintenance; emergency rescue; high-frequency commuting; marine-aerial tourism; and mobile vertiport clusters.

AutoFlight’s water-based green vertiport serves as a mobile aerial hub and intelligent command centre on water. It integrates eVTOL landing platforms, photovoltaic energy storage and charging systems, an intelligent dispatch system and communication facilities, enabling rapid deployment across rivers, lakes and seas.

Designed specifically for eVTOL operations, the vertiport is fully electric. Its spacious deck serves as a landing pad covered with solar panels, while the cabin acts as a departure lounge and technical room. Together, these components form a flexible, zero-carbon vertiport that supports take off, landing and charging for eVTOLs, while also enabling data sharing and intelligent coordination with the aircraft.

As the low-altitude economy continues to grow, the limited availability of eVTOL infrastructure remains a bottleneck, with land-based vertiports often facing lengthy construction timelines. The water-based vertiport is compatible with AutoFlight’s key eVTOL models; the industrial-grade White Shark; the two ton-class cargo aircraft CarryAll; and the six seat Prosperity passenger model. The Integrated land-sea-air solution addresses a variety of sectoral needs, enhancing operational efficiency and fostering synergy between the low-altitude and marine economies:

- It improves the transport efficiency of personnel and critical spare parts by over tenfold for offshore oil rigs or wind farm operations.

- By combining wide-area search capabilities with rapid eVTOL response, the system reduces reaction time by over 50 per cent, expands search coverage significantly, increases survival rates and enhances responder safety.

- It enables rapid air transit within cities, between coastal city clusters, across bay areas and to islands, reducing travel time from hours to minutes. For instance, deploying an eVTOL water vertiport on Shanghai’s Huangpu River could facilitate swift, convenient travel from Hongqiao airport to the central business district of Lujiazui without disrupting existing infrastructure.

- Adds a ‘flight+’ dimension to high-end tourism, creating a new engine for experience-driven tourism.

- Multiple mobile water vertiports can be rapidly networked within a specific water area to form a high-throughput, distributed vertiport cluster, supporting large-scale, multi-mission coordinated operations for broader coverage and smarter applications.

Amid a global shift toward sustainable transportation, zero-carbon aviation has become a critical frontier. By leveraging under-utilised water surfaces, AutoFlight’s solution introduces a highly adaptable, low-impact urban air mobility model. It enables coastal and waterside cities worldwide to rapidly deploy green aviation infrastructure, transforming rivers, lakes and coastal zones into hubs for clean, efficient transport.

Developed in collaboration with strategic partner and investor CATL, high-safety batteries and clean energy systems are integrated into both the eVTOLs and water vertiports.

On the afternoon of 22 November, the Integrated Sea-Air solution was publicly demonstrated for the first time at Dianshan Lake in Kunshan, China when a two ton-class eVTOL aircraft took off from the water-based green vertiport. AutoFlight also conducted a multi-aircraft formation flight demonstration, in which three two ton-class eVTOLs flew in formation and successfully performed live airdrop missions, including deploying supplies and life rafts, demonstrating the application potential of eVTOLs in fields such as emergency response and low-altitude logistics.