FAA conditionally approves first vertiport for air taxi, AAM testing

With the anticipated start of air taxi services in the US set for 2025, it’s not exactly premature for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to have issued its first approval of a vertiport – a conditional greenlight that nevertheless permits development and research of nearing advanced air mobility (AAM) activity.

The qualified authorization was granted to Virginia’s Allen C. Perkinson Blackstone Army Airfield (KBKT), a dual-purpose military-civilian facility. Once the project is cleared by the state’s Department of Aviation, the vertiport will be used to research an end-to-end concept of AAM transport operations.

Though clearly only the beginning of preparations to establish and trial infrastructure that will be essential to permitting air taxis to begin operation when craft developers plan service launches in 2025, the conditional FAA authorization to start testing AAM applications at KBKT is the first in what is expected to be…