Commercial Entry Of First eVTOL Aircraft Will Be ‘Tipping Point’

AMSTERDAM—Ferrovial Vertiports CEO Kevin Cox expects the growth of the urban air mobility industry to be “exponential” once the first electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) aircraft enter service around 2024 or 2025. 

Speaking at the GAD World conference (which like The AAM Report is part of the Aviation Week Network) in Amsterdam, Cox said the commercial entry would mark a “tipping point” that would turn the aviation sector on its head.

“The reception of this technology has been extremely positive so far ... and we are now only a year or two away from the first commercial aircraft,” he said. “That will be a tipping point where people will begin to see all the benefits associated with it.”

Ferrovial Vertiports is working with eVTOL-maker Lilium to develop a network of vertiports in Florida for operation of Lilium Jets. Ferrovial has leased a site at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida and in September expanded its partnership with infrastructure consulting firm AECOM to find additional sites in the state. 

AECOM will work with Ferrovial to identify, rank and eliminate sites based on construction, operational and community criteria. The protocols consider air space, weather patterns, utility sources, first- and last-mile links for passengers, expected volume of eVTOL service and community priorities related to noise, safety, and sustainability.

In addition to the Florida plans, Ferrovial Vertiports wants to build a network of more than 25 eVTOL vertiports across the UK, as well as about 20 in Spain.

“We have a very sophisticated business model that pinpoints with great accuracy using big data where those opportunities are in the communities that allow for people to quickly move to, through, and beyond cities in the seamless electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft that are set to come out in 2024 or 2025 timeframe,” Cox told Aviation Week Network on the sidelines of GAD World.

“We’re working very closely with the [UK Civil Aviation Authority], EASA and the FAA to make sure that we understand and live up to all expectations in terms of the regulations,” he said. “But we’re also going into the specific communities where [eVTOL] would be seamlessly integrated into the fabric of those cities, explaining what the technology is, explaining what the benefits are, [and] explaining that it’s environmentally sound and very noise conscious.”