Dubai’s 2023 Airshow delivered another wave of eVTOL fanfare. Manufacturers and regional partners used the Advanced Aerial Mobility pavilion to sign deals, show mockups and outline roadmaps for vertiports and urban air traffic management. That energy is real and useful. But as a pilot and operations-minded practitioner I came away from the week increasingly convinced that commercialization timetables are being pushed out, largely because certification and integrated operations remain the hard problems.
Headlines from the first days made the point. Lilium and regional dealer ArcosJet announced a purchase agreement for 10 Lilium Jets and talked about deliveries beginning in 2026, while several other manufacturers and integrators announced memorandum of understandings and LOIs for vertiports and air traffic systems in Dubai. Those are important commercial signals. They do not equal regulatory approval.
Behind the kiosks and mockups the work that actually makes passenger flights safe is still underway. Regulators, manufacturers and infrastructure providers all repeated a refrain I hear in operations: aircraft must meet airworthiness standards, pilots must be trained and the low-level traffic environment must be managed before routine revenue flights can begin. A number of companies publicly moved target dates in 2023 from earlier optimism into 2025 and beyond. From an operational perspective that is not surprising. Certification is an iterative, evidence-driven exercise and novel designs require novel means of compliance.
What this means in practice is threefold. First, type certification and validation of means of compliance will drive the calendar. Manufacturers can display mockups and commit to sales, but until a formal type certificate or validated regulatory pathway exists, operators cannot put paid passengers on the aircraft as a routine service. Second, vertiports and urban ATM must be tested in tandem. Testing an individual aircraft in isolation is not the same as demonstrating a safe, repeatable operation integrated with air traffic control and ground infrastructure. Third, pilot training and procedures will be an early gating item. Expect initial services to rely on highly trained pilots operating under conservative limitations rather than immediate fully automated operations.
Dubai’s strategy is clear. The city is investing in vertiport sites and partnering with AAM vendors to accelerate an ecosystem that includes airspace management and ground infrastructure. That ambition shortens some operational barriers. It does not remove the need for rigorous certification. If anything it raises expectations for a safely scaled service because the urban environment offers no tolerance for shortcuts. Operators and regulators will have to coordinate on noise, contingency procedures, emergency response and vertiport safety standards before flights expand beyond demonstrations.
For pilots and operators the midterm picture is straightforward and frankly healthy. Certification takes time because it must prove repeatable safety. Hurrying the evidence-gathering phase risks operational problems later. What we need from industry and regulators now is transparency on milestones, realistic timetables for pilot and technician training pipelines, and concrete agreements on how early operations will be constrained so they can collect the operational data regulators need. That data is the currency for moving from demonstrations to routine service.
My practical takeaways for Dubai and similar early-adopter cities are these. Build vertiport infrastructure with standard emergency access, firefighting and rescue capability designed for eVTOL geometry and energy sources. Design initial routes to reuse established low-level corridors, then expand as operational experience grows. Prize integrated UATM testing over rapid commercial rollout. And finally, treat initial passenger operations as scaled demonstrations with clear limits on density and operating conditions. Those steps reduce risk and create the operational record regulators require to certify new aircraft and procedures.
Dubai has the financial and political will to be an early global AAM hub. The commercial deals announced at the airshow are a sign of momentum. But momentum is not the same as readiness. Certification timelines are slipping not because of a lack of technology but because aviation safety processes are doing their job. As someone who flies for a living I would rather see conservative, well-documented progress than accelerated schedules that compress the evidence regulators need. The airspace above dense urban areas is unforgiving. Do it right, and cities like Dubai will have safe, useful eVTOL services when the pieces are truly ready.