The advanced air mobility sector has long focused on aircraft certification as its primary hurdle, with manufacturers like Archer and Joby targeting 2028 and 2026 respectively. However, according to Lisa Wright, founder of Landings and a real estate professional building a vertiport network across rural North America, the ground infrastructure problem is both more urgent and more time-consuming. Wright draws a direct parallel to the electric vehicle industry, which produced cars faster than charging networks could support them, leading to range anxiety and fragmented infrastructure.
Advanced air mobility faces similar challenges with added complexity. Vertiport development 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 explained. For property owners and municipalities, the consequence is clear: even once aircraft are certified, commercial service cannot begin without prepared landing sites.
Energy infrastructure emerges as the core bottleneck, particularly for rural or semi-rural locations. Grid connections to remote landing sites can take years, and off-grid solar and battery systems require procurement timelines that don’t align with early commercial deployments. To address this, some operators are exploring mobile charging units—trucks delivering on-demand power to landing sites before permanent solutions are in place. “Energy is still the real bottleneck,” Wright says. “Sometimes the timeline on getting that equipment can be longer than expected.”
Operators who started early hold permanent advantages because vertiport development requires years of community engagement and regulatory navigation. “It’s actually very difficult and time-consuming to build infrastructure on the ground,” Wright notes. “Anybody who wants to start now is going to take years to catch up with groups who have been ahead of this.” This dynamic is becoming visible as the FAA’s EIPP program launches operations this summer, and manufacturers plan actual deployments. Operators with secured location agreements and solved energy problems can offer ready sites immediately.
The potential consequence is a split between operators who can move quickly because their infrastructure work is underway and those starting from scratch. In a sector where aircraft certification timelines keep shifting, the ability to offer a network of prepared landing sites may prove the most durable competitive position. For property owners and communities, the calculus is straightforward: when certification arrives, service will flow to locations with existing infrastructure—not to places that begin their multi-year approval process after the fact.
