Coventry will host the ‘world’s smallest airport’ for autonomous drones
World’s smallest airport
The project is currently in a development phase and is expected to be up and running by November 2021.
“Essentially, this will be the world’s smallest airport. It’s like an electric watering hole that will receive autonomous cargo drones and passenger-carrying air taxis. It will also welcome visitors and passengers to come and experience what the infrastructure can do,” Urban-Air Port founder, Ricky Sandhu, toldCities Today.
“The idea is to show how the urban airport infrastructure fits into complementing existing city infrastructure efficiently. City space is very limited, so that’s why our idea is to make sure that we can have a scalable, appropriately sized infrastructure that can deliver the capacity but also fit into our cities without causing too much disruption.”
“The UK government is now very supportive of the air mobility sector. It’s quite interesting because a few years ago the UK was the last place where you would think this kind of technology would be integrated, but actually, with the government’s economic green recovery and carbon net-zero targets for 2050, it has been propelled right up to the top of the agenda,” added Sandhu.
Urban-Air Port plans to install more than 200 zero-emission sites worldwide over the next five years in response to global demand to reduce congestion and cut air pollution.
NASA has predicted that urban air mobility in the US alone could be worth up to US $500 billion in the near-term but that a significant barrier to market growth is a lack of infrastructure.
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Story byCities Today
Cities Today is the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders.Cities Today is the leading news platform on urban mobility and innovation, reaching an international audience of city leaders.
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