The Legislature has passed a bill to usher in the era of flying vehicles.
“Welcome to the age of the Jetsons,” Sen. Gayle Harrell said.
The bill’s passage comes as the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) was selected this week to be one of eight new sites for the federal government’s Advanced Air Mobility and Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) Integration Pilot Program (eIPP).
HB 1093 updates state law to add vertiports and its charging systems as official projects that can qualify for public-private partnerships. The Senate took up the House bill and passed it unanimously, 38-0.
Under the bill, FDOT could fully fund a vertiport if no federal dollars exist. If federal government support is there, FDOT would be allowed to fund up to 80%.
“We already allow this for our airports,” said Harrell, a Stuart Republican.
Originally, the bill protected vertiport operators from liability over wrongful death or property damage unless “gross negligence or willful misconduct” existed. However, that provision later got stripped out during the Committee process, leading HB 1093 to pass both chambers unanimously.
The federal government selected FDOT to be in the pilot program because of the agency’s “three phases of operations focused on cargo delivery, passenger transportation, automation, and medical response, supported by significant public and private investment,” the U.S. Department of Transportation said in a press release.
“Florida, as you know, is already a leader in aerospace and especially in space. We are now going to become the leader in advanced air mobility,” Harrell told lawmakers Tuesday.
Gov. Ron DeSantis and state transit leaders have said vertiports will be operaing in Florida soon. By late 2027 or 2028, the technology is expected to boom into a multimillion-dollar industry. The Interstate 4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando is the first priority to roll out aerial services.
“As advanced air mobility moves from research and testing to real world deployment, this legislation will provide the necessary physical and financial foundation for this industry to take flight in our state,” said Rep. Leonard Spencer, a Gotha Democrat whose district covers Orange and Osceola counties, on the House chamber floor earlier this month. Spencer sponsored HB 1093.