Last week saw the return of the much-anticipated third edition of the Global Urban and Advanced Air Summit (GUAAS) at Farnborough International, bringing together industry leaders from the ever-growing world of Advanced Air Mobility and the future of flight.
GUAAS 2022 was a prime opportunity for innovators, regulators, government and investors to come together and share knowledge, network and take part in technology demonstrations in this emerging space – the first major in-person AAM conference in the UK since the pandemic.
There is a significant potential market for AAM – both in the UK and around the world – but there’s still a lot of work to do to make it a reality. The key policy, regulatory and technical challenges that AAM will have to overcome were the focus for GUAAS this year, with representatives from across global industry contributing their perspectives on how these roadblocks can be overcome.
Infrastructure is one such challenge – how can we encourage the rollout of a broad, accessible and useful infrastructure ecosystem to serve the AAM industry? GUAAS heard from Swanson Aviation and Pascall & Watson on the ‘Skybus’ project, an exciting study looking at how infrastructure could work in cities such as London, and from Frazer Nash on how digital infrastructure will be a key component in scaling the industry.
eVTOL Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) also joined in, sharing their insight on how the aircraft they are designing, producing and in some cases operating, will drive the AAM market. Industry leaders Vertical Aerospace, Joby Aviation and Lilium all contributed – reminding attendees that the future of flight is very much now.
But what about regulation and certification? As we heard from representatives from the CAA and FAA, as well as NASA, a clear, consistent and innovative regulatory system will be crucial to the safe and effective development of an in-demand AAM industry. And this is an area for collaboration across borders too, as the US and UK civil aviation authorities made clear through a joint statement on working together to answer the big questions around production, airworthiness, operations and licensing.
There is, unquestionably, still a long way to go before we are able to take advantage of the new and innovative future of flight that AAM will unlock. This piece has touched on only a few of the areas discussed at GUAAS – the enthusiasm, vibrancy and optimism of the industry was on full display, and it will be exciting to watch how this develops in the future.
One major consistent trend ran through both days – that this is an opportunity for green, clean, guilt-free flying in the near future, contributing to aviation’s broader decarbonisation objectives. In just a few weeks, the global aviation industry will again be gathering at Farnborough for the Sustainable Skies World Summit – don’t miss out on that opportunity to hear from leaders across industry, academia and government on the progress that aviation is making on such an important issue.
