APPENDIX A

Advanced Air Mobility: A Primer

This appendix was prepared by WSP and offers a primer on advanced air mobility (AAM). Also see AAM discussion in Chapter 3.

AAM is a broad term that refers to emerging aviation markets in urban, suburban, and rural communities (Cohen and Shaheen 2021). The federal government is coordinating AAM at federal level in response to the 2022 passage of the AAM Coordination and Leadership Act. U.S. DOT has formed the AAM Interagency Working Group, which is tasked with delivering an innovative and safe regulatory framework for AAM integration. The most recent FAA reauthorization defines AAM as a transportation system that is made up of urban air mobility and regional air mobility using manned or unmanned aircraft (https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3935).

FAA regulates AAM and has published several documents since 2020 outlining the agency’s vision for AAM integration. In April 2023, FAA published the second version of Urban Air Mobility Concept of Operations (https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/Urban%20Air%20Mobility%20%28UAM%29%20Concept%20of%20Operations%202.0_0.pdf). This document outlines foundational principles, roles and responsibilities of various stakeholders, and operational scenarios. In July 2023, the FAA published AAM Implementation Plan – Near-term (Innovate 28) Focus with an Eye on the Future of AAM (https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/AAM-I28-Implementation-Plan.pdf). This implementation plan provides a 5-year outlook for providing information to enable AAM operations in one or more locations in the United States by 2028. Certification is expected in 2025 but not guaranteed.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has orchestrated various outreach initiatives under the AAM Mission, prominently led by the AAM National Campaign, a comprehensive program designed to seamlessly integrate AAM into the National Airspace System (NAS). Serving as a testing ground for new aircraft and technologies, this campaign, conducted in collaboration with industry partners and regulatory agencies, aims to address challenges related to aircraft certification, airspace integration, and community acceptance. Concurrently, NASA has instituted AAM Ecosystem Working Groups to foster collaboration, streamline ecosystem development, and facilitate knowledge exchange among diverse stakeholder groups. This collaborative approach extends beyond technical aspects to encompass public engagement and education, emphasizing NASA’s commitment to building public trust and understanding in the realm of new air transportation technologies. Further details about NASA’s AAM efforts can be explored at the administration’s AAM Mission website (https://www.nasa.gov/mission/aam/).

AAM serves as an umbrella term for various emerging technologies, use cases, and other terms such as urban air mobility (UAM) and regional air mobility (RAM). AAM is inclusive of both passenger and cargo transportation, including the use of small unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) for package delivery.

The use of UASs for moving human organs, blood, medical supplies, medications, food, and commercial products has grown exponentially over the past 5 years (Cornell et al. 2023). The first human organ, a kidney for transplant, was transported using a UAS in April 2019 (Coffey 2019). Zipline is a leading logistics company, leveraging UASs to increase people’s access to healthcare, food, and consumer products. In 2016, Zipline began operating in Rwanda by delivering blood and other medical supplies. As of January 2024, Zipline is operating in 10 locations across the world and has successfully delivered over 892,000 packages via UAS (Zipline International Inc., 2024). Annual UAS package deliveries increased by more than 80% from 2021 to 2022, with an estimated 1 million packages delivered via UAS in 2023 (Cornell et al. 2023). NASA forecasts that up to 500 million UAS package deliveries could be happening each year by 2030 (NASA 2020).

RAM refers to using these new all-electric or hybrid aircraft or traditional aircraft with greater autonomy to provide greater regional connectivity. NASA released a report in 2021 entitled Regional Air Mobility: Leveraging Our National Investments to Energize the American Travel Experience, which defines RAM as building on and leveraging existing underutilized airport infrastructure to transport people and cargo using emerging aviation technologies that improve efficiency, affordability, and community friending integration, focused on trips between 50 to 500 miles (Antcliff et al. 2021).

UAM is a subset of AAM focusing on air transportation for people and goods in a metropolitan area (Cohen et al. 2021). Many potential use cases of this technology are being explored, including infrastructure inspections, emergency management, and—most relevant to this project—air taxis. Garrow et al. 2022 developed a taxonomy of UAM passenger aviation services that could exist in the future:

• Private service in which an aircraft would serve one individual or party;
• Air taxis, which would operate as on-demand service for a single user or single party;
• Air pooling, which would operate as on-demand service but would serve multiple individual users;
• Semi-scheduled commuter wherein departure times or locations may be subject to change based on customers’ preferences and availability; and
• Scheduled commuter, which would offer frequent flights along the same route(s) in a regularly scheduled service (Garrow et al. 2022).

An additional UAM use case is an airport shuttle market “that envisions connecting AAM passenger service to, from, or between airports on fixed routes” (Goyal et al. 2021). One market demand analysis specifically analyzing the air taxi and airport shuttle markets predicted a daily passenger demand of 82,000 to be served by about 4,000 new aircraft across the United States in the most conservative scenario (Goyal et al. 2021).

Larger airports often serve as intermodal passenger facilities where rail, air, surface, and micro-transportation options often meet. AAM technologies present potential opportunities for airports large and small to increase their transportation services. ACRP Research Report 243: Urban Air Mobility: An Airport Perspective (Mallela et al. 2023b) provides airport professionals a guidebook and toolkit for understanding and evaluating AAM opportunities and challenges. This report provides a comprehensive market assessment, use case and applications analysis, business case considerations, AAM opportunity and impact assessments, and planning strategies for AAM integration. The report’s toolkit enables professionals to determine AAM integration readiness and resources for advancing readiness for further planning.

Other intermodal ground passenger transportation facilities and organizations are also seeking to understand AAM opportunities. In November 2023, the New York City Mayor’s Office and the New York City Economic Development Corporation announced the vision to update the Downtown Manhattan Heliport to include the necessary infrastructure to accommodate eVTOL