Advanced air mobility infrastructure: Considerations for state policymakers

Executive summary

Advanced air mobility (AAM) encompasses a variety of aircraft form factors and operating use cases. Early development has focused mainly on electric vertical takeoff-and-landing (VTOL) aircraft for commercial air taxi services. While AAM has not yet been commercialized, several AAM aircraft developers are deep into the regulatory certification process. If they succeed, AAM aircraft have infrastructure demands that must be met.

Central among the unanswered questions is who will finance, build, and operate this AAM infrastructure, especially vertiports.

Vertiports share the core design elements of conventional heliports and many early vertiports are expected to be retrofitted heliports, adding AAM-specific features such as electric charging as well as expanded passenger and cargo terminals. Vertiports may be located on or off existing airports, and may be sited on the ground or on top of existing structures. Vertiport location and design choices will face additional constraints dependent on aircraft characteristics and VTOL operations, but most will be dictated by private investment and political rules.

Congress has to date played a limited but important role in AAM infrastructure development, primarily by defining “vertiport,” ordering the creation of design guidelines, and funding planning and research. For its part, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has published vertiport design guidelines and has announced plans to establish more-detailed performance-based design standards in the future.

The federal role in AAM infrastructure development will remain limited as long as substantial funding does not materialize. As a result, state and local laws and regulations will prove more influential in dictating development decisions. From 2021 to 2025, 21 states introduced 59 pieces of vertiport-related legislation. Of those 59 bills, 24 were enacted.

Most introduced and enacted state vertiport legislation focused on defining basic terms and ordering further research by responsible agencies. However, bills enacted in Arkansas, Oregon, Utah, and West Virginia establish strict requirements on vertiport ownership and use that could materially impact AAM infrastructure investment and development decisions. This “open access” framework was adopted as model legislation by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a national group of conservative state legislators.

The AAM market is characterized by a large degree of uncertainty owing to technology novelty and its unproven commercial viability. As a result, investments in AAM infrastructure carry a large amount of risk. The experience with conventional heliports, where 89% are privately owned and operated, suggests that the vast majority of vertiports will also be privately financed and operated, including many public-use vertiports.

Mitigating the risks to taxpayers posed by public-use vertiports will require innovative procurement methods. Public-private partnerships can leverage underutilized public assets in desirable locations, such as urban parking facilities, for private vertiport development and operation. Long-term leases that grant private concessionaires the right to collect user revenue offer the greatest risk-transfer potential.

However, the “open access” vertiport development framework enacted by several states and adopted by ALEC as model legislation would preclude AAM infrastructure risk transfer from the public to private sectors. There are two main problems with this approach. First, public-use vertiports by definition are open to the public and cannot discriminate between competing AAM operators, undermining the supposed basis for this approach. Second, by mandating vertiport layout plan review by FAA, the “open access” legislative framework establishes a process that cannot be lawfully carried out by FAA in most circumstances. As a result, the “open access” state vertiport policy framework would prevent the development of most public-use vertiports.

Instead of adopting the flawed “open access” framework, states seeking to enable public-use vertiport development to support the broadest variety of AAM services should focus on core responsibilities: defining key terms in statute, incorporating vertiports into state aviation system planning, providing technical assistance to localities, and establishing uniform statewide vertiport development policies.

Full Policy Brief: Advanced air mobility infrastructure: Considerations for state policymakers

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