UrbanAir Port makes debut in Coventry

It was while sitting at his home office desk during a Covid lockdown that Urban-Air Port’s (UAP) founder Ricky Sandhu noticed the never-ending procession of delivery vans coming and going from the same parking bay on his street.

It was this window observation and the subsequent thought that there must be a more sustainable method of delivering goods that set  Ricky on the path of developing the UAP concept.

The team has set up the world's first UrbanAir Port – Air One, in Coventry with over 15,000 people visiting during a three week public viewing which concluded in May.

The UAP site in Coventry is now being dismantled with talks ongoing about its relocation to another location.

Urban-Air Port Limited designs, develops, manufactures and operates ground, air and digital infrastructure for new forms of urban air transport such as air taxis and autonomous delivery drones.

Ricky, a former architect at Foster  + Partners , has worked with airport clients and on city designs around the world.

Both he and his team are  on a mission to create the ground infrastructure that will enable these new modes of transport to flourish and has a target of deploying 200 vertiports across the world in the next five years.

Ricky, who is 44 and grew up in Birmingham, said: "I thought that space is being used dangerously by big vans by guys who are in a hurry because they need to get to the next destination.

"All these vans are not electric yet either so they are bringing fuel and particle emissions into the street with them.

"I thought there must be a way to make that area safe and take these large moving vehicles away from residential streets and ensure that everyone still gets their packages.

"That's how City Box was born."

Visitors to Coventry viewed a CityBox drone prototype which gave a glimpse of how we could soon get deliveries in the future.

The Coventry scheme has been aided by a  £1.2mn grant from the UK Government to help fund the future of aviation.

Supernal, Hyundai Motor Group's urban air mobility division, has invested an undisclosed sum in UAP to advance its cargo drone and air taxi technology capabilities.

Drones are already delivering in many cities around the world however Ricky says that an integrated transport network is needed for the industry to become sustainable.

He said: "We are speaking to a number of cities and logistics companies around the world who have great interest in getting their packages to people.

"Our CityBox model is a modular system that allows us to land multiple drones at the same time within which we will then process the cargo and make it available to the consumer.

"We have a sister product Docks Box  which plugs into a fulfilment centre and allows logistics companies to use the system without making huge changes to their warehousing.

"A drone can leave a warehouse and then land in a CityBox on a street. I call it a future post box."

While faster deliveries look ever closer, how long will it be before we see short passenger flights between cities and neighbourhoods in the UK?

Ricky believes that within the next five years this could become a reality and at a price point within reach of the average income.

He said:  "What you get with a vertiport is low capital expenditure but with high capacity infrastructure and therefore less cost to the consumer.

"Having high capacity is important from a cost perspective for airlines and vertiports will be in high demand areas.

"The cost will vary from location to location but we expect the price will be in the region of £90 to £150 to begin with ."

The former architect says the thirst for knowledge amongst the public about the Coventry pilot has taken the team back with early coverage of the project reaching over five million people.

He said: " It has certainly captured people's imagination.

"When we went from horses to cars, we got stuck on the car and we are at that moment of change again and the industry is  moving incredibly fast."