Skyway and Siemens have partnered to develop electric and digital infrastructure needed to support future vertiport operations.
The CEO of Skyway, an advanced air mobility (AAM) startup and provider of air traffic navigation services for autonomous aircraft, has warned that a lack of investment in infrastructure to accommodate the arrival of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vehicles could hamper the rate of adoption of next-generation aviation technologies.
“As far as the readiness level of the infrastructure, we are at near-zero right now,” Skyway CEO Clifford Cruz told Aviation Week. “We’re at the very early stages and the OEMs are very far along and appear to be headed for certification within a few years. The pressure is on, and we need to make sure that the investment community and planning firms understand this tidal wave coming that, right now, no one is really anticipating.”
Cruz observes that the amount of funding and investment devoted to infrastructure has been paltry compared to OEMs, which in many cases have raised hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars to date. By contrast, most independently owned vertiport companies have struggled to raise more than a few million dollars in the capital markets, although large corporate-backed groups like Groupe ADP and Ferrovial have ample financial resources.
In the meantime, the Skyway CEO said that more legislation is needed to increase dedicated funding for AAM infrastructure as a whole, although he warned against reallocating existing funds from general aviation budgets to build out AAM infrastructure.
“We don’t want to see UAM [urban air mobility] sucking out resources from budgets of general aviation,” Cruz says. “Runways need to be repaired, as do tarmacs, lights and everything else they’re required to operate. What we need is to start thinking about UAM as a whole different bucket, because it’s a greenfield opportunity. There’s other costs associated with it, but it really allows general aviation and everybody else to be a player in this space and participate on an even playing field.”
Despite the lack of investment, Skyway is pushing forward with its vision to provide air navigation services for the nascent UAM sector. “Our core business is air traffic control, privatized and mixed with other services and different products that are designed for the AAM industry,” Cruz explains. “We provide services for drone operators, as well as vertiports on the infrastructure side. But at our heart, we are a technology company that builds infrastructure and communications systems for vertiports and autonomous aviation.”
To that end, Skyway has been busily pursuing partners to collaborate with toward developing vertiport systems and infrastructure. The company earlier in February announced a partnership with Moonware—a venture-backed startup developing automated solutions for aviation ground operations—aimed at digitally integrating ground infrastructure into urban air traffic management (UATM) systems. This enabled what the companies described as a “streamlined airside workflow and extended navigation services from start to end.”
The collaboration with Moonware came on the heels of a partnership announcement between Skyway and Siemens that will see the companies cooperate to determine the electrical and digital infrastructure needed to support future vertiport operations.
