Leading advanced air mobility (AAM) company Skyports has struck a deal with the North London Brent Cross Town project to develop a veliport in the neighborhood to service electric vertical takeoff and landing craft (eVTOL) air taxis and other next-generation craft.
Skyports said Thursday it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the joint venture company overseeing the transformation of Brent Cross Town into a cutting-edge, smart, and sustainable urban area. The agreement designates Skyports to study and pursue ways to build an eVTOL veliport to provide service to the air taxis and other AAM vehicles expected to shuttle in and out of the area. Awaiting construction of a permanent facility, Skyports says its contribution of funding and modular AAM terminal designs it uses elsewhere around the world will allow it to have an interim veliport ready as soon as 2024.
The speed in getting a provisional terminal up and operating by then may be a reflection of how well-crafted Skyports’ infrastructure approach is. But the 2024 deadline is also a reflection of how vast the wider Brent Cross Town project is – and how the site of the permanent veliport probably won’t be ready for construction by the time AAM service operators are set to fly.
Located just southwest of Highgate in the Barnet borough, the Brent Cross Town area is undergoing a $9.57 billion regeneration that will result in a 180-acre, mixed-use neighborhood. It’s being built around the concept of a park-town, and will feature 6,700 dwellings, workspace for 26,000 people, playgrounds, sports centers, and shops – a bit of urban calm and greenery only several minutes tube ride from the hyper-center of London. Accentuating the bucolic feel, the project calls for 50 acres of the total area to be set aside as greens space for leisure activities.
Those same plans also call for the neighborhood to be a showcase of various AAM transport methods serving as alternatives to traditional, more polluting ground options. Construction of the eVTOL veliport also plays into targets for Brent Cross Town to be a zero-carbon emission community.
“This exciting project is a sign of huge progress within the industry,” says Skyports CEO Duncan Walker. “The very fact that vertiports are being planned for construction in mixed-use neighborhoods such as Brent Cross Town demonstrates the direction in which the industry is moving and the increasing confidence in its success. Our in-house team of airport planners, regulatory experts, airspace experts, software and hardware developers remains completely focused on vertiports which are safe, practical and in locations which will make a positive impact on daily life.”
Conveniently headquartered in London as it works on the Brent Cross Town eVTOL air taxi veliport project, Skyports says the deal extends the AAM roll the company has enjoyed of late. It has signed numerous deals for next-generation infrastructure construction in Europe and across Asia, and considerably reinforced its partnership with Australian craft manufacturer Swoop Aero to extend their drone delivery partnership across Europe, Asia, and North America.
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