Rome readying to host Europe’s first vertiport

The plan is to make the pioneering facility a reality for the city’s 2025 Jubilee celebrations

Here’s an update on Rome’s plans to become Europe’s first city with a vertiport for flying taxis. A consortium company called UrbanV is in the works for the purpose of creating a functioning hub by the end of 2024.

That way, the first urban flight services could be delivered during the city’s 2025 Jubilee – a major Catholic pilgrimage event, which takes place only once every 25 years.

As such, the plan is to establish the first vertiport at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, from where electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles will take passengers straight into the city. This will have the advantage of skipping over the ground traffic and its accompanying delays.

A network of 10 vertiports, and more

The Fiumicino vertiport is only meant to be a stepping stone to the expansion of flying taxis as a vital urban mobility mode. The goal is to grow and create and network of 10 such facilities throughout the Italian capital.

For that reason, UrbanV has selected Amazon Web Service (AWS) as its cloud provider. AWS will help to develop an innovative and scalable operating model for vertiports that can be expanded internationally over the next few years.

What’s more, the project in Rome is itself only the first stage to transforming Italy into a pioneering country regarding private aerial transport. Other cities that have been mentioned as future vertiport host sites are Venice and Bologna, and even the French Riviera.

Over the next five years, UrbanV plans to invest several hundred million euros in expanding its model on a European and global scale.

The cloud support from AWS will help keep the vertiports small, which is a necessity in tight urban environments. All check-ins and security checks will be automated, thus saving time and space.

Passengers will receive customised updates in real-time, with travel plans that will automatically adjust if connecting flights are delayed, multi-channel check-in and inherent flexibility.