Industry leaders gathered at Global Urban & Advanced Air Summit (GUAAS) to discuss the latest innovation of advanced air mobility and pioneer future strategies face-to-face.

The event, which took place at the world-class Farnborough International Exhibition & Conference Centre 2-3 March 2022, saw more than 30 industry-leaders speak and nearly 300 pioneers attend, network and share experiences across the two days. Clear themes throughout the summit were the need to take a collective effort as an industry to accelerate innovation and establishing advance air mobility’s position in the wider public transport industry.

In the event’s opening keynote, Starr Ginn, AAM National Campaign Lead at NASA, shared details of the latest strides the administration has made within its Urban Air Mobility (UAM) Grand Challenge, which aims to test the capabilities and readiness of vehicles and systems that could revolutionise mobility in and around densely populated metropolitan areas.

Discussing where the advanced air mobility could take the aerospace in the future, David Rottblatt, VP of Business Development at Eve Air Mobility, revealed the vital need to collaborate as an industry: “We are now at the pivotal moment – the electrification of aviation. This future will depend on how we liaise and share thoughts, maintain positive relationships.”

Following on from the topic of advancements in the industry, Michael Cervenka, President of Vertical Aerospace Group, shared belief that eVTOL was just around the corner. “The question is no longer ‘Is it going to happen?’ but ‘who will be the main players making that a reality?’. This is an incredibly exciting time in aviation.”

The event provided an engaged platform for industry pioneers to announce new innovations and partnerships. Alauda Aeronautics and Airspeeder, the world’s first eVTOL racing series, announced a global first – the first hyper factory to manufacture racing eVTOLs. In a FINN exclusive, Airspeeder revealed that construction of the facility was being made possible thanks to A$20million funding from the Central Australian Government.

Developed and hosted by Farnborough International, organisers of the pivotal Farnborough International Airshow, GUAAS partnered with SmartCitiesWorld and World Economic Forum (WEF) to launch the Cities & Regions Forum, a world first opportunity to bring policymakers together from around the world to discuss how to implement efficient and effective mobility in rural, regional and urban areas. The group of city practitioners discussed new physical and digital infrastructure requirements to implement UAM in their cities, policy development to ensure safe and secure deployment, keeping UAM accessible and equitable for citizens and realistic timeframes for deployment of UAM services and reflection on existing pilots and projects.

www.farnboroughinternational.org