AUBURNDALE, Fla. — The Florida Department of Transportation intends to “streamline” its approval process for new airports to accelerate the arrival of electric air taxi service, a state official said Tuesday.
“We recognize that the current permanent and temporary airport permitting process in the state of Florida is difficult to navigate,” Carina Maloney, FDOT‘s principal for air and ground system development, said during a summit hosted by Brazil-based Eve Air Mobility at the state’s SunTrax testing grounds here. “We recognize that, and we are working to streamline that, and working to put draft legislation in to hopefully make that a little bit easier.”
She noted FDOT anticipates changing those rules by next year.
Maloney said this legislation is needed if Florida is to become an early destination for companies like Embraer-owned Eve, which is developing a four-passenger electric air taxi. Eve executives at the event said Florida will be among its top markets, with Orlando and Miami in the top five markets for the company globally.
Maloney told me the proposed changes would apply to the small vertiports envisioned for AAM aircraft. One such change, she said, would allow required notification periods to run concurrently.
“It is state legislation we are working to change. We are working on draft language now to hopefully be able to change it next year,” Maloney said.
Eve anticipates having about 325 air taxis operating in the state by 2036, said Megha Bhatia, chief commercial officer, during a separate panel. Major use cases include flying from airports — including vertiports at the SunTrax facility, which is located halfway between Orlando and Tampa — to urban centers, she said.
She noted Eve is targeting the second quarter of 2028 to conduct public demonstrations of passenger flights.
Several other electric aircraft developers are working to demonstrate their services under the federal eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, or eIPP.
