Seletar Aerospace Park To Support UAM Growth

Seletar Aerospace Park, alongside the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), has announced the signings of two Memorandums of Understanding (MOU) with Skyports and Volocopter. It is hoped that these two companies can help explore ways to grow the fledgling urban air mobility (UAM) sector in Singapore.

The partnership was announced on the first day of the Singapore air show, which will see the two companies work with JTC, the developer of the aerospace park. Additionally, Seletar has been marked as a future Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) hub.

The MOU with Skyports will explore ideas regarding building new facilities at Seletar Aerospace Park, such as an air taxi vertiport terminal, hangarage, and pilot training.

Yun Yuan Tay, Head of Asia Pacific at Skyports, commented “Singapore is a trailblazer for future mobility in the Asia Pacific region and we are delighted to be working with Economic Development Board and JTC to explore all the elements required to create an advanced air mobility hub at Seletar Aerospace Park.

For Volocopter, the company plans to study whether the park can conduct manufacturing and maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) activities for electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.

Earlier this week, Volocopter published a 32-page document called The Launch of Urban Air Mobility in Singapore – A Roadmap which stated that by 2030 the company could expect to generate SGD 4.18 billion for Singapore. The roadmap details the company’s plan to initially support tourist flights over Marina Bay and Sentosa, before expanding to include cross-border air taxi services to Malaysia and Indonesia. Moreover, Volocopter has also partnered with ACG to help finance its eVTOL aircraft fleet for USD 1 billion.

“This MOU signifies a concrete step towards our commercial rollout in Singapore,” Christian Bauer, Chief Commercial Officer of Volocopter explains. “We’re grateful to our forward-looking partners – the Economic Development Board and JTC – for embarking on this journey with us.”

Both Skyports and Volocopter hope to launch commercial air taxi service in Singapore by 2024.