Will Dubai Get Back On the Advanced Air Mobility Map?

New eVTOL aircraft could enter service from 2024, but cities like Los Angeles and Singapore appear to be ahead of Dubai in adopting electric aviation.

Airbus recently unveiled the design for its planned CityAirbus NextGen eVTOL aircraft. (Image: Airbus)

By Charles Alcock • Managing Editor

November 8, 2021

Back in the early days of what has become the advanced air mobility (AAM) boom, Dubai appeared a likely candidate for early adoption of new eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft for applications such as air taxi services. More recently, however, ambitious cities like Los Angeles, Singapore, Miami, and Paris seem to lead the race to embrace the new mode of air transportation, with eVTOL pioneers like Joby, Archer, Lilium, Volocopter, and Vertical Aerospace all promising initial commercial operations starting in 2024.

In 2017, Dubai’s Roads and Transportation Authority (RTA) seemed ahead of the game when it conducted air taxi demonstration flights with early prototypes of autonomous eVTOL models under development by Germany’s Volocopter and China’s EHang. At the time, the emirate’s government set an ambitious goal of making 25 percent of all local traffic, both on roads and in the air, self-driving.

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