Skyports

What It Is

Skyports is a London company with two businesses. Skyports Infrastructure designs, builds and runs vertiports and heliports for electric air taxis. Skyports Drone Services flies drones for deliveries, inspections and surveillance. Duncan Walker and Simon Morrish founded it in 2018, the company says.

Walker is group chief executive. Alex Brown runs the drone business. The holding company, Skyports Limited, is controlled by the Spanish construction group ACS, which Companies House records as holding more than half of its shares since March 2024.

Key Products

Vertiports. VDX, a four-storey vertiport of about 3,100 square metres at Dubai International Airport, was certified by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority on 7 July 2026. Skyports says it can handle up to 170,000 passengers a year, and three more Dubai sites are in development with the city’s Roads and Transport Authority. Joby Aviation is the planned air-taxi operator under a 2024 agreement. Skyports also took over the Downtown Skyport heliport concession in Manhattan in April 2025 and owns Skyports London Heliport, bought in 2021.

Drone services. Skyports has flown Royal Mail post from Stromness in Orkney to the islands of Graemsay and Hoy since 2023, with 517 flights by August 2024. Under a yearlong, FAA-approved trial from 27 April 2026, it flies light cargo across the East River between Downtown Skyport and the Brooklyn Marine Terminal for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

In a four-week trial for Ørsted in 2026, a large drone lifted 55 to 65 kg tool kits onto turbines at the Hornsea 2 wind farm. Pilots fly from a remote operations centre at Westcott, Buckinghamshire. The company says its drone services run in 13 countries.

Business and Financial Position

Skyports is private. It announced a Series C of more than $110 million in April 2024, led by ACS through its concessions arm Iridium, with Groupe ADP adding capital. Iridium’s chief executive, Nuria Haltiwanger, became chair. The group’s accounts put the round at more than £78 million.

Those accounts cover 15 months to 31 December 2024, after the year end moved from September. Drone services brought in £3.30 million of revenue and grants, with an EBITDA loss of £9.0 million. Infrastructure brought in £2.60 million, with an EBITDA loss of £5.4 million. The group made 6,268 drone flights in the period and ended it with 85 staff.

Why It Matters

Skyports and the UAE regulator call VDX the first purpose-built commercial vertiport to be certified anywhere. A vertiport earns its keep only once air taxis fly from it. The drone business already has customers, from Royal Mail to Ørsted, and it also has the larger losses.

Both businesses lost money faster in the 15 months to December 2024 than in the year before, even allowing for the longer period. The combined EBITDA loss was £14.4 million, against £7.2 million in the year to September 2023. Skyports Limited’s accounts for 2025 are due at Companies House by 31 December 2026.