VPorts

About

VPorts is a vertiport infrastructure developer founded in Canada by Dr. Fethi Chebil. Its UAE profile rests almost entirely on a single announcement made on 7-8 December 2022, carried both by the company and by the Dubai Media Office, in which VPorts said it had signed a landmark agreement with the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority and the Mohammed bin Rashid Aerospace Hub at Dubai South to create what it described as the world's first Advanced Air Mobility Integrator Centre. The announcement specified a 37,000-square-metre site held under a 25-year exclusive lease renewable for a further 25 years, an initial investment of US$40 million over three years, and 1,500 direct jobs. GCAA Director General Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi and MBRAH CEO Tahnoon Saif were both quoted, which makes the agreement itself well-attested even where its execution is not.

The counterparty question in the seed note needs correcting. The named UAE parties are the federal GCAA and MBRAH at Dubai South. No primary source located describes a memorandum of understanding between VPorts and the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, and DCAA is not mentioned in either the VPorts press release or the Dubai Media Office version. The site is inside Dubai South, adjacent to Al Maktoum International Airport, and is described as an integration and flight-test centre rather than a passenger vertiport serving a city-centre network.

On 15 March 2023 VPorts announced a set of agreements with three aircraft-side partners. Electra.aero and SkyDrive both published the announcement on their own newsrooms, which independently confirms their participation: Electra to demonstrate eSTOL operations alongside eVTOL traffic and use the vertiport for commercial operations, and SkyDrive to test its SD-05 in a dedicated air traffic corridor and support certification work. SkyDrive's own release characterises the arrangement only as an initial set of agreements for technical and business collaboration, and does not state whether it is binding. Falcon Aviation is named in the VPorts and Electra releases as an MRO and operations partner, but no Falcon primary source confirming a VPorts agreement was found; Falcon's subsequent publicly announced UAE vertiport and eVTOL work has been with other parties. On the same day VPorts announced a separate vertiport at Ras Al Khaimah International Airport with the airport and the RAK Department of Civil Aviation.

On 7 June 2023 VPorts said it had initiated a certification process for its Dubai vertiports, describing itself as the first infrastructure company to do so. That release does not name the certifying authority, does not identify a standard, and no corresponding GCAA or DCAA publication confirming an application, approval or issued vertiport certificate was located. The claim is therefore recorded here as a company statement of intent rather than a regulatory fact.

Nothing further about the UAE has appeared on the VPorts newsroom since June 2023, and the company's current project overview page states that its first vertiport will be located in Montreal, Canada, with no Dubai project described. Announced milestones — construction from 2023, operations and first flight testing from 2024 — have passed without primary confirmation. On the available evidence the Dubai centre is best treated as announced and unbuilt, and readers should not confuse it with the separately developed commercial vertiport programme in Dubai run by other parties.

Connected entities

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. [vports-dec2022] VPorts — VPorts inks landmark agreement to create world's first Advanced Air Mobility Integrator Centre in Dubai operator-ir · accessed 2026-07-28
2. [vports-dec2022-pdf] VPorts — Press release: AAM Integrator Centre (PDF, English) operator-ir · accessed 2026-07-28
3. [dubai-media-office-dec2022] Dubai Media Office — VPorts inks landmark agreement to create world's first advanced air mobility integrator centre in Dubai government · accessed 2026-07-28
4. [electra-mar2023] Electra.aero — VPorts Inks Strategic Agreements to Boost Development of Dubai's Advanced Air Mobility Centre With Electra.aero, Falcon Aviation and SkyDrive official-news · accessed 2026-07-28
5. [skydrive-mar2023] SkyDrive Inc. — SkyDrive Collaborates with VPorts to Promote International Advanced Air Mobility Industry from Dubai official-news · accessed 2026-07-28
6. [vports-cert-jun2023] VPorts — VPorts embarks on the certification process for its vertiports as part of the world's first Advanced Air Mobility Integrator Centre in Dubai operator-ir · accessed 2026-07-28
7. [vports-rak-mar2023] VPorts — VPorts to establish a first vertiport at Ras Al-Khaimah Airport operator-ir · accessed 2026-07-28
8. [vports-overview] VPorts — The Project: Overview operator-ir · accessed 2026-07-28
9. [vports-news-index] VPorts — News index operator-ir · accessed 2026-07-28

Verification flags

• REFUSED: seed note's 'Dubai Marina' vertiport claim. No VPorts or government primary source places any VPorts site at Dubai Marina; all primary sources locate the Dubai project at Dubai South. Not published, and no connection made to the dubai-marina-vertiport slug.
• REFUSED: seed note's 'vertiport infrastructure for Eve' claim. No primary source links VPorts to Eve Air Mobility in the UAE.
• REFUSED: seed note's '2026 launches' framing. No primary source gives a 2026 UAE operational date for VPorts. Company-announced dates were construction 2023 and operations/first flight test 2024.
• UNVERIFIED: MoU with Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA). No primary source found. The named UAE counterparties are the federal GCAA and MBRAH/Dubai South. DCAA appears in neither the VPorts release nor the Dubai Media Office release.
• UNVERIFIED: Falcon Aviation's participation. Asserted by VPorts and repeated on Electra.aero's newsroom, but no Falcon Aviation primary source confirming a VPorts agreement was located. Published only as an attributed VPorts claim.
• UNVERIFIED: the June 2023 'certification process'. VPorts' own release names no regulator, no standard and no applicant reference; no GCAA or DCAA publication confirming an application, approval or issued vertiport certificate was found. Recorded as company intent, not regulatory status.
• UNVERIFIED: construction start, completion, and any operational or flight-test activity at the Dubai South site. No primary confirmation of any milestone after the June 2023 press release.
• NOT PUBLISHED AS FACT: Falcon Aviation's stated plan for first eVTOL tourist flights in 2026 from Atlantis, The Palm. This appears as a partner quote inside the March 2023 VPorts/Electra announcement and is not corroborated by a Falcon primary source.
• PROJECTIONS ONLY, labelled as such: US$7 billion revenue over 25 years and 1,500 direct jobs are VPorts' own forward-looking figures in the December 2022 release, not verified outcomes.
• COORDINATES WITHHELD: primary sources give only 'Dubai South' / MBRAH and a 37,000 sqm area, with no plot location or coordinates. Latitude and longitude left null rather than approximated.
• DORMANCY SIGNAL (sourced, stated conservatively): VPorts' own news index carries no UAE item after 7 June 2023, and its current project overview page names Montreal as its first vertiport with no Dubai project listed. Recorded as absence of confirmation; status set to 'announced' rather than 'orphaned' because no primary source states the project was cancelled.
• LEADS FOUND IN TRADE PRESS, NOT CITED: Vertical Magazine, Aviation Week, AGBI, Gulf Business, Zawya and Air Cargo Week carried these announcements and were used only to locate primary sources.
• DISAMBIGUATION: VPorts must not be conflated with the separate Dubai commercial vertiport programme developed by other parties near Al Maktoum International; no connection asserted to al-maktoum-international-vertiport or skyports-infrastructure.