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You're listening to Bloomberg Businessweek with Carol Massar and Tim stanovec on Bloomberg Radio.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (3:03)

The China focused business news site. Kaishin today reporting that was actually this week yesterday that China has unveiled draft rules to speed up certification of evtol aircraft. We're talking about electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. You haven't been on one yet?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (3:19)

Not yet, yeah.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (3:19)

No, neither have I. The story goes on to note though, the regulatory competition with the U.S. citing industry executives. For more, we're joined once again by Lisa Wright. She's founder and CEO of Landings. It's a company that says it's building a landing and ground operations network of vertiports for EVTOLs. She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Welcome back.

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (3:39)

Thank you for having me back.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (3:40)

The regulatory landscape is a really important part of this. And I think last time you're on with us, you said that the first passenger carrying EVTOLs will happen in the Middle East. It won't happen here in the US Is that still the case?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (3:52)

That is still the case. I mean, they are carrying passengers in China, but the Middle east will be next. And then the US Is coming pretty close behind.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (4:00)

Is it a disadvantage in terms of the regulatory environment here versus other countries?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (4:06)

No. The FAA has been working very hard actually. They've streamlined and done a lot of fast tracking and changed the training for pilots because there's going to be new pilot training, et cetera. So I don't think the regulations in the air are has been an issue. It's just, you know, in Dubai and the UAE they were more excited about building the infrastructure first. So I'm very much about the infrastructure. So that's what we're trying to build.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (4:30)

Well, let's talk about that because when we talk about electric vehicles, we just did a story this week about kind of how things are sliding backwards. And I think initially, early on, Lisa, so much of it was the infrastructure wasn't there the charging networks and it created anxiety among the consumers. So talk to us about the infrastructure buildout. Where you guys are, this process and what are some of the hurdles?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (4:53)

Yeah, no, there's definitely a lot of hurdles. Number one is energy. So getting access to energy is hard. We are not really competing with data centers, but data centers are looking for energy in areas that we're looking for energy as well. So what we're doing is we have two people on the team who are specifically looking at energy, getting the equipment financed and working with utilities, but also providing battery backup and energy systems in front of the meter in order to take up the slack for the charging. So charging Is our number one issue really. Finding land is great, we can do that. But getting the energy out. And to your point, there's a lot of attention being paid to EV networks right now that aren't necessarily succeeding.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (5:38)

Do you actually have to be connected to the grid in order to charge? Could you create a sort of self contained, off the grid landing area that uses renewable energy?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (5:50)

Absolutely. So we use about 1 or 2 megawatts watts of energy and you can get that from 5 to 10 acres of solar. Okay, so there is a way that we could do with solar and then store it. Exactly, store it with the battery and then we can exactly use it for the peak when or the demand when they land and need it.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (6:09)

But you can't just rely on that alone or can you?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (6:12)

We could do that. I mean there's still a grid connection to most places.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (6:15)

Maybe in Arizona or. Yeah, you know, I don't know, parts of California.

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (6:19)

Yeah, yeah.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (6:21)

So how do you see kind of this building out and what's the cost involved? Like how do you do it? Is it public, private partner? Like how does it all get done?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (6:29)

Yeah, so the first network of 12 that we have in upstate New York is a mix of different use cases. So we have agriculture, we have entertainment and casino, we have existing airports. We also have some private, public private partnerships going on with communities for like medical purposes and first responders. So there's a whole range of uses. Now a lot of the vertiports that you see right now, they're very fancy. I call them Zaha Hadid buildings. Right. Like they're amazing and futuristic and they cost a lot of money. Yeah, we're going to build 2,000 of these. So we're going to not make them cost a lot of money. And how we're going to do that is because they're mini, they're very small, they're micro, they're about, you know, an acre and a half is the minimum space we need. And we're going to put so many of them out there, we're going to put 2000. Not all of them will have charging, but by having such a dense network, we'll be able to guarantee landing spaces and charging within 30 minutes of any spot you are.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (7:25)

So I think about air traffic control in a situation such as this. And we spent a lot of time over the past few years talking about shortages of air traffic controllers. If we're sending more vehicles into the air, there's more of a need for air traffic controllers. How does that factor into the estimate for how these Things are going to be filling the skies.

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (7:46)

Yeah. No, air traffic control is really overwhelmed right now with traditional flight. But because of the altitude that these craft fly in, it's a different altitude and it's different wavelength for communications. So they do not have to use the existing air traffic control systems. There's a company, a non profit in Syracuse called Newair that is working on having all the demand for the airspace for heavy drones and EVTOLs. So it's going to be a completely different airspace.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (8:18)

Right. But you still have to have some coordination, don't you? Because eventually even those that are flying much higher have to come down.

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (8:26)

Absolutely, absolutely. And when they are near airports or towered airports, they still have to communicate with the tower and air traffic control like normal mine. Because my locations are mostly rural, very remote, they're not having the same conflict. They're in general airspace. But also the, the reason, one of the reasons that we chose the Mohawk Valley, upstate New York is because this company, NewAir, has 1,000 miles of airspace that they're already working in. So there's drones and all kinds of different things flying there already.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (8:58)

The real estate agreements that you have in place, what do they look like?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (9:02)

So we do two different types of real estate agreements, but what we're pushing for right now is just options. So we're not leasing and we're not buying the property. We're getting an option. It's much like a cell tower. So in essence, we will take on then the feasibility studies, the engineering, the build. We'll finance the equipment for the owner, and once we're operating, then we'll share the revenue with them.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (9:25)

So it's been how much? A month or so since we've talked.

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (9:28)

Yeah.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (9:28)

What's the biggest change in that timeframe?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (9:30)

The biggest change in the last month? There's been two, but one is that everybody stopped focusing on individual vertiport. Yeah. Started talking about the network, which is really key for especially EVTOLs.

Public.com Disclosures / LifeLock Advertiser (9:43)

Right.

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (9:43)

Is you can't just go from two points. It gets a little boring. Right. You have to have a lot of locations.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (9:48)

I need one that goes from home. In Brooklyn, 731 Lexington Avenue. Okay. In midtown Manhattan, you know, just South Brooklyn a little bit.

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (9:58)

Yeah.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (9:59)

Maybe.

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (10:00)

Yeah.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (10:00)

You know, I mean, what do you envision that? Like we just got oohed like 15 seconds. What's the view, you think?

Chase Business Advertiser (10:07)

I don't know.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (10:07)

Is it five years, ten years?

Lisa Wright, Founder and CEO of Landings (10:08)

What's the vision five years from now? I believe everybody would have at least tried one.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (10:13)

Wow. Okay.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (10:14)

That's pretty cool.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (10:15)

That's very cool.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (10:16)

So first Waymo sooner than I thought and then this.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (10:18)

Yeah, this has people.

Bloomberg Host (Female) (10:20)

This has people feel a little bit better.

Bloomberg Host (Male) (10:22)

Yeah, I do close my eyes in a Waymo Lisa Wright, founder and CEO of Landings, joining us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio.

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