USA. Embraer company Eve Air Mobility has formed a consortium of leading urban air mobility (UAM) organisations and technology enablers to develop a Concept of Operations with a use case for a route between Miami International Airport and the Miami Beach Convention Center. The partners include Skyports, L3Harris Technologies and the Community Air Mobility Initiative.
Each has a specific role in the collaboration. Skyports designs, builds, and operates take-off and landing infrastructures for UAM aircraft; L3Harris integrates next-generation Air Traffic Management (ATM) technologies to enable UAM operations; and CAMI supports the responsible integration of UAM into communities.
The consortium has produced a comprehensive CONOPS document which examines the ecosystem required for both passenger and vehicle journeys, including insights and feedback from stakeholders across Miami-Dade County. The data has been used to establish an understanding of how UAM could safely support an airport shuttle use case in the County.
Looking at the possibility of moving passengers between Miami International and the Miami Beach Convention Center in Eve’s electric air taxis, the document notes that the same journey by car takes at least 45 minutes, with the need to cross causeways and bridges.
The same journey by air taxi is expected to take about seven minutes. When factoring in the time to also travel to a vertiport to board a flight, the trip is expected to take just over 30 minutes in total.
Early projections from Eve predict that by 2026 in an unconstrained market (i.e. not accounting for factors that would limit or prohibit operations), Miami-Dade County could have seven vertiports serving between 40 and 63 electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft carrying up to 600,000 passengers a year.
Looking much further ahead to 2035, the company predicts that the County could have up to 32 vertiports and 210 eVTOLs. By this time, 4 million passengers are expected to travel across 88 routes annually.
Eve Co-CEO Andre Stein said: “Miami-Dade County and Florida present a great opportunity for Eve to create a blueprint that can be replicated in markets in North America and other regions as we look toward the introduction of UAM operations. Eve and the consortium have gained valuable insights into how best we, and our peers, can prepare the ecosystem to launch and scale safely.”
Skyports CEO Duncan Walker said: “Skyports is proud to partner with this consortium and community leaders to contribute our infrastructure knowledge to the future of urban air mobility in Miami-Dade. We believe this study is an important first step to working with the community as well as local industry to ensure vertiports can be delivered with strong local support.”
He added: “As Miami-Dade County begins preparation for urban air mobility operations in the coming years we look forward to working with local and state leaders to make this a reality.”
Eve has also announced today that Global Crossing Airlines Group has signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) to order up to 200 of its eVTOL aircraft. This potential sale is included in Eve’s current order book of up to 1,785 eVTOLs. The company said it expects to start the deliveries in 2026.
The completion of the transactions contemplated by the LoI is subject to the execution of definitive agreements and receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals.
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