Vertiport Infrastructure, Not Aircraft Certification, Seen as Primary Barrier to eVTOL Deployment

While electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft manufacturers have long focused on certification timelines, a growing chorus of industry experts argues that the real bottleneck to commercial deployment is ground infrastructure. Lisa Wright, founder of Landings and a real estate professional building a vertiport network across rural North America, contends that the advanced air mobility sector is repeating a critical mistake made by the electric vehicle industry: building vehicles faster than the supporting infrastructure can accommodate them.

Drawing a parallel to early EV adoption, Wright notes that automakers produced electric cars before charging networks were adequate, leading to range anxiety and fragmented adoption. Advanced air mobility faces similar challenges, compounded by the complexity of vertiport development, which involves land agreements, community approvals, utility connections, and energy assessments—each carrying multi-year timelines. ‘All the focus was on the aircraft, which gave time to build the thesis and have conversations,’ Wright said. However, for property owners, municipalities, and potential passengers in underserved areas, the consequence is concrete: even once aircraft are certified, commercial service cannot begin without prepared landing sites.

Beyond land and permitting, Wright identifies energy infrastructure as the most underappreciated constraint. Grid connections to remote landing sites can take years to establish, and off-grid solar and battery systems require lengthy procurement timelines. To bridge the gap, some operators are exploring mobile charging units—trucks capable of delivering on-demand power to landing sites before permanent energy solutions are in place. ‘Energy is still the real bottleneck,’ Wright says. ‘Sometimes the timeline on getting that equipment can be longer than expected. But locations being built in underserved areas face energy constraints because of where they’re located.’ This temporary solution addresses a practical problem: if an aircraft manufacturer wants to conduct a landing at a site on short notice, energy infrastructure gaps don’t become a blocking issue.

Wright emphasizes that the early-mover advantage in vertiport development is permanent. Operators who started securing location agreements, working through community approvals, and solving energy problems in advance hold positions that new entrants cannot replicate on short timelines. The FAA’s EIPP program is launching operations this summer, and manufacturers are beginning to plan actual deployments. The question of where aircraft will land is shifting from theoretical to operational. Operators with prepared sites can offer manufacturers something they need immediately: ready infrastructure.

The potential consequence is a split between operators who can move quickly because their infrastructure work is already underway, and those starting from scratch. In a sector where aircraft certification timelines keep shifting—Archer’s may slip to 2028, while Joby targets certification by late 2026—the ability to offer a network of prepared landing sites, regardless of which manufacturer’s aircraft is ready first, may prove to be the most durable competitive position available.

For communities and property owners considering vertiport agreements, the calculus is straightforward. Aircraft certification will eventually arrive. When it does, service will flow to locations where the infrastructure already exists—not to places that begin their multi-year approval process after the fact. The infrastructure being built now determines which communities have access when commercial operations begin.

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