Munich Airport has announced that it is joining forces with leading companies, universities, and research institutions as well as municipalities and organisations to form the Air Mobility Initiative (AMI). Members of the initiative include Airbus, City of Ingolstadt, Deutsche Bahn, Deutsche Flugsicherung, Diehl Aerospace, Droniq, Red Cross and Telekom.
The initiative, which is funded by the Free State of Bavaria and the Federal Republic of Germany, will set up a series of research projects aimed at making electric air mobility within and between cities a reality. The joint projects are centred around three main areas: electric aircraft, air traffic management services, and vertiports.
“A few years ago, air mobility was just a vision. Today, with AMI, we are taking a big step towards realisation. We at Munich Airport International see enormous potential in this new form of mobility. The AMI partnership enables us to jointly develop and implement scalable and sustainable Air Mobility concepts for the public,” says Dr. Ralf Gaffal, Chief Executive Officer Munich Airport International, who will be joining a panel of industry leaders in a session titled ‘Advancing eVTOL operations around the world’ at the FTE Air MobilityX Summit, taking place during the upcoming FTE Dublin show on 7-9 June.
“We will examine the various elements of such an air transport system in realistic projects to gain an accurate picture of the technical and regulatory requirements” said Andreas Thellmann, Head of Air Mobility Initiative. “Electric air transport can enhance public transport, airports and time critical mobility services, it will be environmentally friendly, quiet and safe.”
The AMI partners will initially address the technological, infrastructural, legal, and social prerequisites for the future implementation of advanced air transport. Subsequently, the knowledge gained will be carried through a demonstration project under real conditions with electrically powered vertical take-off aircraft.
Work on the individual AMI projects began in January 2022. The test flights of the pilot project will be carried out in the region around Ingolstadt. The initiative is funded with a total of €17 million from the Free State of Bavaria and €24 million from the Federal Government. Over the next three years, the investment is expected to total €86 million.
Airbus is responsible for the electrically powered aircraft together with Diehl Aerospace, University Stuttgart and other partners. Components and systems for the CityAirbus NextGen are to be developed in this workstream. The area of “Unmanned Traffic Management” deals with the safe and efficient flight of vehicles on their routes in- and outside cities. This topic is being advanced together with Droniq, Airbus, f.u.n.k.e. Avionics, SkyFive, BrigkAir, DFS, Telekom, Universities from Munich and Hamburg as well as other partners. In the “Vertiport” project innovative and sustainable solutions will be developed for the planning, permitting, implementation and operation of ground infrastructure for electrical vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLs).
