Chinese urban air mobility (UAM) technology company EHang Holdings has wasted no time in honouring the Memorandum of Understanding it signed with a Catalunya-based Spanish international airport and announced the opening of its first UAM Centre in Europe.

Located inside the Lleida–Alguaire International Airport (LEDA), the centre will provide a test site for perfecting EHang’s dream of being the first drone company in the world to run a successful passenger drone operation on a commercial basis.

In the MOU that was announced in May this year, it was reported that EHang would promote autonomous aerial vehicles that would be operating with a remote UAM command centre, a new, safe and sustainable system.

And of course, EHang will be running trials on a variety of autonomous air vehicle products and solutions for all industrial applications, covering operations, urban air mobility (including passenger transport and logistics), intelligent city management; as well as the command and control centre of autonomous air vehicles.

But the jewel in the drone company’s crown will be the E216-S, the flagship passenger UAV, whose successful deployment EHang hopes will foster the accumulation of operational experience as well as invaluable knowledge.

“By integrating vast flight experience gathered from various locations worldwide, this collective information can be leveraged to the development of technological solutions, regulations, processes and procedures for the safe and efficient integration of eVTOL aircraft into European airspace in the future,” said EHang in a statement.

The centre has come at an opportune time for LEDA, which has seen traffic figures dwindle since the Covid-19 pandemic shook the world in 2020.

Damia Calvet, the minister of territory and sustainability emphasised the importance of resuscitating commercial activities at the airport, and they hope to go about it is to innovate with drone technology.

And the minister is confident that they have a wise choice in partnering with EHang, describing the company leading the pack “in everything related to the development of drones and aeronautical widgets dedicated to both logistics and passenger transport”.

“We are not talking about expectations but about reality, a present that has a long way to go,” Calvet said at the MOU signing ceremony in May.

“EHang’s solutions are very ingenious. We are talking about sustainable, autonomous mobility and we are talking about safe, fast and efficient mobility.”

The centre includes a vertiport that has the capacity to enable seamless incorporation with the airport terminal, platform, control tower, equipment, procedures and regulations. EHang lauded this setup as a state-of-the-art vertiport that will set a benchmark for global UAM infrastructure and accumulate a vast amount of knowledge and expertise on the vertiport establishment and operations.

During the inauguration event, Mr. Huazhi Hu, Founder, Chairman and CEO of EHang, stated, “The establishment of EHang’s European UAM Centre marks an important step forward in the Company’s international development,” said EHang founder and CEO, Huazhi Hu.

“Through this world-class UAM centre, EHang expects to manifest its strong commitment with the development and deployment of UAM in Europe.

“EHang aims to share our certified and validated technology and operational experience with our partners around the world in the future to make our shared vision for benefiting all of society with safe, autonomous and eco-friendly UAM solutions.”

The announcement also comes at a time when Hu’s company is celebrating the issuance of its Type Certificate (TC) from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) issued the Type Certificate (TC) for the EH216-S; which is a first for a passenger autonomous aerial vehicle in China.

 “We are especially proud of the cooperation with EHang, a leading technology company in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles in the world, to whom we are grateful for having chosen our international airport as their first European UAM Centre,” said Marc Sanglas, Secretary of Mobility and Infrastructure of the government of Catalunya.

Victoria Xiang, COO of EHang Europe and Latin America added that the centre was initially conceived in support of the company’s operations and activities under SESAR-JU’s U-ELCOME and EUSPA’s SAMVA projects.

“In addition, we are looking at scaling its applications to advance innovative air mobility projects as well as EASA’s certification and airworthiness requirements to further promote industry development and make UAM a reality in Europe, which is a future we are looking forward to creating,” Xiang added.