The World’s First Floating Airport for Aircraft Unveiled
AutoFlight, a Chinese eVTOL manufacturer backed by battery giant CATL, has unveiled the world’s first floating airport for aircraft.
The company calls it the eVTOL Water Vertiport. It is a modular floating platform that serves simultaneously as a landing pad and a charging station for electric aircraft. The entire structure is powered by solar panels and its own energy storage system. AutoFlight states that these platforms can be installed almost anywhere — from busy coastal areas to remote offshore zones — thanks to built-in communication equipment and an automated dispatching system.
Such floating airports could support rescue missions, perform maintenance of offshore wind farms and oil rigs. AutoFlight claims that response times for rescue operations could be reduced by half, while scheduled maintenance of offshore facilities could be performed ten times faster. In cities, these floating vertiports could provide direct air-taxi routes across harbors or wide rivers, without relying on congested airports or specialized ground infrastructure.
AutoFlight is far from being an early-stage startup. The company already has orders for more than 2,000 aircraft for cargo, passenger transport, rescue operations, and firefighting. CATL, which has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the project, is also developing specialized aviation batteries and “condensed batteries” that may one day allow electric aircraft to fly more than 300 km on a single charge.
