All Those Flying Taxis Will Need Somewhere to Land
Vertiports will blossom in open fields and on big-city rooftops.
As orders rise, flying taxi companies and their partners are paying more attention to ground infrastructure. Vertical Aerospace envisions so-called vertiports across the U.K., at rural sites, including former wartime airfields, and urban locations—on top of multistory parking garages, for example. “We’re having to unlearn certain things about airports,” says Kevin Cox, chief executive officer of Ferrovial Vertiports, which plans to build at least 25 sites in the U.K. and 10 in Florida, working with Vertical and Lilium. They will feel “nothing like an airport.”
Locations will be determined by customer demand, Cox says. Small vertiports might accommodate a couple of aircraft; bigger ones could house up to eight.