In last month’s article, which formed Part I of this two-part series, we looked at how China’s various provinces and municipalities are planning for the low-altitude economy by building out many thousands of take-off and landing sites. In this follow-up, we take a virtual tour of the globe, honing in on those cities that have made tangible progress on infrastructure development to support electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. As with Part I, the discussion here draws directly on our work developing forecasts for the forthcoming report The Future of Advanced Air Mobility – 2025. As we will see, the real story is less about shiny greenfield projects and more about retrofitting existing infrastructure – a lesson best illustrated by one city that already moves more people by helicopter than anywhere else in the world.
Middle East
We start in the Middle East, which is set to be the first regional market outside of China to scale. The United Arab Emirates (UAE), in particular, is a country that Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation have had their sights set on for some time with the former granted six-year exclusive rights by Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) to operate air taxi services in the emirate. The centrepiece of its proposed network is the currently in-construction Dubai International Vertiport (DXV), located at Dubai International Airport (DXB) and a stone’s throw from the Emirates metro station. It is unique in that it is one of the only greenfield developments outside of China that has moved beyond the planning phase. Indeed, enabling works are complete and updates from Skyports Infrastructure on LinkedIn show the structure steadily emerging from the ground.
Still From a Skyports’ Video Showing Progress of DXV Construction
Source: Skyports Infrastructure
Set for completion in Q2 2026, DXV is meant to be the first of four vertiports in Joby’s initial Dubai network. While the OEM is confident the first commercial flights will commence next year, this all hinges on certification timelines that are, shall we say, somewhat ambitious. Even so, when might we see those three other vertiports being finalised? Joby’s President of Aircraft OEM, Didier Papadopoulos, told Khaleej Times in June 2025 that the first route would connect DXV with Dubai Marina. However, there is no evidence of ground being broken as yet. The Marina district is home to several helipads though, and the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) has said that it will allow “flying taxis” in the UAE to use existing helipads. Electrification of one of these is presumably a possibility then but this is pure speculation on our part. As is the status of the two remaining vertiports in the network – Downtown Dubai and Palm Jumeirah – both of which appear to be at a similarly unadvanced stage right now.
Archer, of course, has its own ambitions to run air taxi services in the UAE. The initial proposed route network is Abu Dhabi-centric, with identified sites at Marina Mall heliport (Abu Dhabi Corniche) and the Abu Dhabi Cruise Terminal (Zayed Port). Atlantis, The Palm is also in scope as the Dubai node for a later inter-city link, while Al Bateen Executive Airport, Yas Island and Khalifa Port have, so far, only been shown at the concept stage. Of these, Zayed Port is the only site with a published GCAA design approval, which would see the existing helipad converted into a hybrid heliport. At the time of writing, we could find no indication of any site works having commenced.
Speculation abounds about a wider UAE build-out: a flurry of MoUs (memoranda of understanding) name Sharjah, Ajman and Ras Al Khaimah as potential nodes in an inter-emirate network of adapted heliports and purpose-built vertiports. But, as of September 2025, these remain entirely at the idea stage, not shovel-ready projects. In the near term, new Middle East sites are likelier in Saudi Arabia (and possibly Oman), with Vision 2030 funding and giga-projects like NEOM and The Red Sea driving the agenda. As host of the 2034 FIFA World Cup, the eyes of the sporting world will also be on Saudi Arabia, giving it added incentive to showcase futuristic mobility – an opportunity that could turbocharge deployment.
North America
As home to Joby, Archer and BETA Technologies, the United States hosts three of the frontrunning AAM vendors and several cities that are strong candidates for vertiport build-out. A handful of its largest urban conurbations exceed ten million people and are therefore defined as “megacities”, with GDP per capita high enough that a sizeable pool of residents could theoretically afford initially high air-taxi fares. What’s more, and relative to Europe’s best-in-class systems, many U.S. metros have less extensive, high-frequency, and integrated public transport, so there’s less direct competition for future air taxis and airport shuttles. Crucially, the country also has a dense nationwide network of helipads and heliports that could be electrified to support eVTOL operations.
This last point is key and its importance should not be understated. In assessing where vertiports are most likely to be built, our model weights population, congestion, GDP per capita, government support, the strength of public-transport alternatives, helipad density, tourism inflows, and the size of local airports. On those measures – especially helipad density – the stars largely align for multiple U.S. cities to emerge as prime contenders for development. It is no surprise, then, that the aforementioned Skyports is working to develop several key existing sites. Having formed a joint venture with Groupe ADP in late 2024, Downtown Skyport LLC took over the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in New York City and, in April 2025, unveiled the rebranded “Downtown Skyport”, beginning upgrades to prepare the facility for eVTOL operations.
The site, of course, is fundamental to Archer’s planned New York City network, with the first announced route linking Downtown Skyport to Newark Liberty Airport and further connections envisaged to East 34th Street and West 30th Street helipads, as well as JFK, LaGuardia, Teterboro, Westchester County and Republic airports. On delivery, though, progress is uneven. At Downtown, electrification works are slated to begin this year and early facility upgrades are under way, but there is no public confirmation that eVTOL charging installation has started. At East 34th Street, Atlantic Aviation’s lease obliges eVTOL charging within one year of the first Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) type certification. Utility and design preparation have been done but no visible construction has been disclosed. West 30th Street, meanwhile, has no publicly announced eVTOL retrofit plan on record. At the airports, JFK hosted a high-profile all-electric aircraft landing in June 2025, but the Port Authority has been quiet on dedicated eVTOL infrastructure at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark. Likewise, Teterboro, Westchester County and Republic have seen Fixed Base Operator (FBO) investments and planning discussions but no documented eVTOL charging or vertiport construction is under way.
Clearly, certification of Archer’s Midnight aircraft is key to many of these puzzle pieces falling into place. Despite its involvement in the White House’s new eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), talk of being “ready” by the 2028 LA Olympics still feels optimistic. Thus far, Archer’s piloted tests have been conducted with a pre-production Midnight that has so far demonstrated conventional (not vertical) take-offs and landings, while the company says its type-conforming aircraft are in assembly ahead of for-credit testing. Archer did report a 55-mile piloted flight in August 2025, but conducted only three flights in July – a modest tempo relative to what will be required for certification. Joby, which by comparison appears further along in its entry-into-service efforts, may therefore prove pivotal in unlocking some of this infrastructure in the shorter term. In the interests of balance, Joby has also joined the eIPP (as has BETA) and while its ambitions in New York are more muted, it has signed an agreement to install its charging system at Kearny Heliport in New Jersey.
Along the West Coast, tangible progress is also limited. Archer has sketched a Bay Area network and a set of LA nodes tied to its Olympic aims with connections to LAX, Van Nuys, Long Beach and John Wayne airports. But, as is the case in New York, these are mere site identifications and MoUs, with progress contingent on type certification and local permitting. The only concrete hardware we can point to is at John Wayne Airport, where Clay Lacy’s $100 million FBO redevelopment includes a Joby-branded charging unit rather than one for Archer. Joby’s prospective California sites, however, show similarly limited movement, and its rooftop-access partnership with REEF in Los Angeles and San Francisco has yet to identify any specific rooftops for build-out.
Interestingly, any greenfield developments in North America may materialise away from the high-profile coastal projects. In February 2025, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority said it would solicit partners to develop and operate a vertiport at Orlando International, identifying an undeveloped parcel of land at the airport and targeting a 2028 go-live. Elsewhere, activity is likely to focus heavily on modifications. Chicago is already home to the aptly-named Vertiport Chicago, which has been earmarked by Archer for an O’Hare shuttle service. Planning for on-site electrification is underway, but eVTOL chargers are not yet installed. We can expect similar retrofit-led moves at other hubs such as Dallas–Fort Worth, South Florida and Las Vegas, which is one of the densest helicopter markets in the country and a hotbed of tourists who like to spend big.
Asia-Pacific
China aside, which we covered in Part I of this analysis, there are a myriad of proposals across the wider Asia-Pacific region but – as is becoming a familiar theme – not much with near term build likelihood. For now, Japan and South Korea look to be the two markets to keep an eye on. In March 2025, Osaka Metro completed the OSAKAKO Vertiport, which has hosted several SkyDrive SD-05 demonstration flights recently. If certification stays on track, OSAKAKO is positioned as the first of four planned vertiports in the city. In South Korea, construction is underway on a vertiport near the KINTEX convention centre in Goyang. When completed in June 2026, passengers will be able to travel from KINTEX to a future vertiport at Gimpo International Airport in approximately 15 minutes. Other identified sites in Seoul include Yeouido, Suseo, and Jamsil. Also in South Korea, Jeju Island just signed an MoU with Skyports to develop and operate a vertiport network. Sites are currently being identified with a target to launch by 2028.
OSAKAKO Vertiport in Osaka, Japan
Source: SkyDrive Inc.
A wildcard to throw into the mix is Indonesia’s future capital city, Nusantara. Being built from scratch on the east coast of Borneo, Nusantara offers a blank slate: its planners can integrate vertiports from day one, selecting sites with unobstructed approach and departure paths, reserving airspace corridors, and embedding infrastructure without the constraints of pre-existing built-up fabric or retrospective permissions. That could significantly simplify permitting, land acquisition, and regulatory alignment compared to trying to shoehorn vertiports into long-established cities. The Nusantara Capital City Authority aims to commercialise air taxis by 2029 under its Smart Air Mobility initiative and Hyundai’s Supernal had positioned itself as a key partner in this plan, signing agreements with the authority and preparing for local demonstrations. However, the company has since undergone leadership changes and paused its aircraft programme, raising questions about its ability to follow through on its role.
It would be remiss not to include India in this part of the analysis. Now the world’s largest population centre, the country is also a rapidly expanding aviation market. While the government has announced plans to develop 1,000 helipads and drone zones every 50 km along national highways, our contention is that the vast swathes of informality that characterise the economy, combined with extremely low levels of disposable income among much of the population, will severely limit passenger eVTOL uptake. India’s disproportionately high number of low-cost carriers (LCCs) further underlines the extreme price sensitivity at play. More likely is that this infrastructure will be used to support an expanding helicopter fleet – electric or otherwise – and enable arguably higher-priority missions such as Emergency Medical Services (EMS), as well as non-passenger aircraft for middle-mile cargo and last-mile drone delivery.
Europe
Europe is already home to a number of early vertiport testbeds. In 2022, Skyports and Groupe ADP commissioned a site at Pontoise-Cormeilles Airfield outside Paris, originally intended to support Volocopter’s proposed Olympic flights. While passenger services during the Games were ultimately shelved due to certification delays, the facility remains active and offers the wider AAM ecosystem a valuable environment to test and develop technologies, infrastructure, and operational procedures. Across the Channel in the United Kingdom, 2025 saw Skyports complete its vertiport at Bicester Motion in Oxfordshire. The company has also acquired the former Falcon Heliport in East London, now known as Skyports London Heliport. This site continues to handle conventional helicopter operations while Skyports plans a retrofit for eVTOL use, although the timeline and scope of enabling works remain unclear.
Overall though, the continent is one of the slower moving parts of the world when it comes to development of AAM infrastructure rollout. Save for another testbed at Rome Fiumicino’s Leonardo da Vinci International Airport, which UrbanV hopes will one day be one of many vertiports dotted throughout Northern Italy, we’re largely looking at a set of proposals that don’t look like coming to fruition any time soon. Shorter term, and perhaps surprisingly, Serbia could emerge as one of the next movers. The government plans to acquire three Archer Midnight aircraft, raising the possibility that a temporary vertiport will be fast-tracked for Expo 2027 in Belgrade. As seen in Osaka, such showcase events can provide the political impetus to build isolated testbeds that demonstrate capability, even if they do not immediately seed a broader network.
Medium-term, the aforementioned UrbanV could well fulfil its ambition to be among the first in the world to launch an AAM commercial network. Its proposal for the Côte d’Azur in Southern France would link sites including Nice, Monaco, Cannes Mandelieu and Golfe de Saint-Tropez, with additional locations such as Aix-en-Provence and Marseille under consideration. While the now-defunct Lilium was earmarked to operate flights once the network became operational, we’d be surprised if plans are not one day resurrected with another aircraft OEM. Like Dubai, the region is densely populated with high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and already has a thriving helicopter transfer market, supported by numerous heliports and hotel helipads that could be converted for eVTOL operations. Monaco Heliport alone handles tens of thousands of movements each year, while events such as the Formula One Grand Prix, the Cannes Film Festival and the yacht season drive steady demand for aerial shuttles. This existing mix of wealth, infrastructure and use cases makes the French Riviera one of the more credible candidates for an accelerated AAM rollout in Europe once certification and electrification catch up.
Rest of the World
Any AAM infrastructure development in Africa is expected to be a longer-term prospect. The continent is home to rapidly growing megacities such as Cairo, Kinshasa and Lagos, but it feels like a huge leap of faith to imagine mass adoption of air taxis when a large share of the population still lives on less than a couple of dollars per day. Over time, autonomous flight and the resulting reduction in operating costs – and therefore ticket prices – could expand the potential market beyond the wealthy few who might afford to ride today, but probably not before 2040, at least not from Western OEMs. The likes of EHang may find some success in the tourism segment, but as is the case in China today, these services would likely operate from temporary or pop-up vertiports.
Instead, it could be somewhere like Johannesburg where we see some level of passenger eVTOL adoption – either in place of current helicopter options or through some degree of market expansion. The city already has established helicopter infrastructure, such as the Ultimate Heliport in Midrand and a number of private charter operations, and arguably shares many of the same characteristics that have made São Paulo the world’s premier urban air mobility (UAM) market today. One such characteristic is the subset of HNWIs with security concerns who regularly travel to and from the financial district by helicopter. While Johannesburg is unlikely to rival São Paulo in terms of scale or helipad density, the underlying dynamics are similar enough that it could emerge as a meaningful market over time. For now, though, there are no confirmed vertiport plans in Johannesburg, only early-stage studies and proposals.
Conclusion
Mentioning São Paulo towards the end of this article is a deliberate strategy, as the city underpins how we think the market for passenger eVTOL infrastructure will really unfold. With more than 400 helipads and the busiest helicopter market in the world, São Paulo shows that an abundance of sites and regular usage by HNWIs creates a ready-made foundation for scale. It is here, through retrofitment of existing facilities, that eVTOLs can quickly slot into established transport patterns. Eve Air Mobility, working with local operator Revo as its launch customer, is pursuing exactly this path with plans to deliver up to 50 eVTOLs from 2027. While we don’t share Eve’s optimism on a 30,000-passenger eVTOL fleet by 2045, building on São Paulo’s proven helicopter culture in its home market is a sensible strategy and a logical starting point.
And this is the crux of our message. Greenfield infrastructure is not coming en masse – Dubai’s DXV stands out as one of the most fully featured greenfield vertiports actively rising today. While a handful of others, such as Osakako’s demo-focussed facility and Goyang’s early-stage UAM hub, exist, most others are paper designs or modest testbeds, often just containerised facilities beside painted landing circles. Additional greenfield projects, like Nusantara and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 developments, are sure to emerge but will remain isolated instances and are not indicative of a construction boom. Real momentum will come from upgrading the heliports that underpin mobility markets today. São Paulo proves the model, and cities with similar dynamics will follow, while those without the density of existing infrastructure, ability to pay, or strong government backing as seen in China will remain on the sidelines.
