Walker also said that the air taxi service will be provided on the Uber app, a ride-hailing service
Air taxis will only work at scale if they are affordable, convenient and safe enough for daily use, the owner of an air mobility company said. For it to be successful, air taxis must offer more than the excitement of a first-time flight and provide a practical way to travel from one place to another, Duncan Walker, the founder and CEO of advanced air mobility company Skyports, said.
Skyports builds and operates networks of vertiports and has worked with the Road and Transport Authority (RTA) to develop them for air taxi use. A vertiport is a take-off and landing site for aircrafts that vertically takeoff and land, such as Joby’s electric aircraft, which is launching its air taxi service in Dubai later this year.
Speaking at the Dubai International Project Management Forum, Walker said that the air taxi industry isn’t a “replication of the helicopter market”, which is for the elite and very rich. “This is a public transportation service and therefore has to be accessible at a price point to many people,” he said.
Duncan Walker, founder and CEO of Skyports. Photo: KT Photo: Hind Aldah
“I think the benefit here is you can provide a taxi service from A to B, whilst getting the benefit of seeing the city,” Walker added.
Two vertiports have already been completed, he said, with the next ones set to be complete this year. He did not mention the location of the finished vertiports, but RTA did announce last November a 60 per cent completion of the vertiport near Dubai International Airport (DXB).
Other locations are in the Zabeel Dubai Mall parking area, the American University of Dubai parking zone, and a vertiport near Palm Jumeirah. Walker said that although he hopes people will use the air taxis daily, he acknowledged that the industry will be constrained by supply rather than demand for the first few years.
“We’ve got to build the right verticals, we’re under construction,” he said. “The number of vehicles is highly regulated, so they’ve got to go through the federal aviation and local regulator. Once they’ve done that, they’ve got to go through the production cycle. So the initial years will be limited by vehicle supply.”
Walker also said that the air taxi service will be provided on the Uber app, a ride-hailing service.
In November 2025, Joby Aviation and RTA completed the first successful electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi flight in the UAE. The flight took 17 minutes from Joby’s test facility in Margham to Al Maktoum International Airport, a journey that would usually take around 50 minutes by car.
Dubai’s unique ecosystem
Many cities and countries face much of the same challenges that Dubai has, with an increase in population bringing heavier traffic congestion and a burden on the road network. What sets it apart is the vision of the country’s leadership and their ability to navigate those challenges, Walker said.
“There’s something very unique around this region, which is the long-term vision that gets followed through and has the ability to align all of the myriad of stakeholders,” he said.
Source: Khaleej Times
Published: 15 January 2026
