Michigan’s AAM Economy in 2025: From Momentum to Market Formation

By 2025, Michigan’s AAM ecosystem crossed a critical threshold. What had once been exploratory pilots began to resemble an emerging market—anchored by manufacturing capacity, public-sector demand, airport readiness, and workforce alignment.

Data from Thelenwood Consulting’s Michigan Advanced Air Mobility Readiness Survey (the “AAM Index Survey”) reinforces this distinction between momentum and maturity. While the average readiness score across respondents was 24 percent of total possible points, 82 percent of airports expressed interest in participating in or partnering on AAM initiatives, and 61 percent identified AAM as important. The data points to strong interest and intent, even as readiness and integration vary across the state.

Data from Thelenwood Consulting’s Michigan Advanced Air Mobility Readiness Survey (the “AAM Index Survey”) reinforces this distinction between momentum and maturity. While the average readiness score across respondents was 24 percent of total possible points, 82 percent of airports expressed interest in participating in or partnering on AAM initiatives, and 61 percent identified AAM as important. The data points to strong interest and intent, even as readiness and integration vary across the state.

What Worked in 2025: Signals of Takeoff

Several developments defined 2025 as a takeoff year:

• Deployment of more than $10 million through the AAM Activation Fund toward scalable, policy-relevant use cases

• Expansion of beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) corridors from exception to planning assumption

• Installation of electric aircraft charging infrastructure at regional airports, moving AAM readiness into capital planning

• Clarification of the operating environment through SHIELD legislation, providing statewide consistency for UAS governance

• Alignment of state agencies around a shared AAM framework

Together, these signals marked a transition from “Can this work?” to “How do we scale it responsibly?”

Federal Signals in 2025: A Market Being Disciplined

At the federal level, 2025 reinforced a clear shift from experimentation toward discipline and accountability in the AAM and UAS sectors.

Federal agencies continued to emphasize beyond-visual-line-of-sight operations grounded in corridor-based testing, data collection, and demonstrated safety cases. Supply-chain security emerged as a defining theme, with increasing scrutiny of foreign-manufactured components and growing alignment with federal “Blue List” procurement expectations.

At the same time, the normalization of counter-UAS authorities, event security planning, and dual-use applications reflected a closer alignment between civilian aviation, homeland security, and defense priorities. Infrastructure-first framing under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) further reinforced expectations that AAM deployment align with public benefit, resilience, and operational credibility—not novelty alone.

For Michigan, these federal signals validated a slower, structured approach focused on governed corridors, airport-centric deployment, and secure supply chains.

The International AAM Landscape: Competing Models, Diverging Paths

Globally, 2025 marked a sorting phase for AAM.

China continues to dominate uncrewed aircraft manufacturing, supported by vertically integrated supply chains and sustained government investment. Parts of Asia-Pacific and the Middle East accelerated deployment through centralized regulatory models, rapid infrastructure buildout, and direct state coordination.

Europe focused more deliberately on cargo logistics, emergency response, and regulatory harmonization, prioritizing public acceptance and certification pathways over rapid expansion. By contrast, the United States increasingly differentiated itself through emphasis on security, compliance, and domestic production—accepting a slower pace of deployment in exchange for durability and trust.

Michigan’s strategy aligns closely with this U.S. posture, positioning the state not as the fastest to deploy, but as one of the most credible environments for scaled, secure integration.

What Should Happen Next

If 2025 marked AAM’s takeoff moment, the next phase will determine whether that momentum becomes durable, statewide capability.

The work ahead is less about launching new pilots and more about organizing what already exists. To translate progress into scale, Michigan’s AAM ecosystem must now focus on continuity, convergence, and connection—particularly as federal expectations tighten and global competition accelerates.

What’s Missing: The Integration and Continuity Gap

As AAM activity accelerated, progress did not distribute evenly across the state—and continuity did not always follow early engagement.

Certain regions experienced compounding momentum, while others—despite early planning support, demonstrated readiness, and strong local assets—found themselves increasingly removed from where information, opportunity, and decision-making are concentrated.

Findings from the AAM Index Survey suggest that the primary constraint facing many airports is not interest, but integration. More than four in five respondents (82%) expressed interest in AAM engagement, and 65 percent reported confidence in their airport’s future role, yet the average readiness score remained 24 percent. Many airports remain early in the transition from intent to execution, particularly where information sharing, governance models, and clear engagement pathways are limited.

Survey results also indicate that many airports already possess baseline aviation infrastructure—such as automated weather observing systems (91%) and instrument landing systems (68%)—suggesting that readiness gaps are driven less by physical assets and more by coordination, governance, and integration capacity.

Beyond integration and continuity, 2025 also revealed a related gap that increasingly limits scale: translation. While interest in AAM is strong—evidenced by the AAM Index Survey showing 82 percent of respondents interested in engagement and 61 percent identifying AAM as important—many economic development organizations, business leaders, local governments, and community stakeholders still lack a clear, practical understanding of what AAM looks like in daily life and how it creates value outside the aviation sector. Without this shared frame of reference, AAM risks remaining conceptually compelling but operationally distant.

Grounding AAM in everyday experience requires shifting the conversation from aircraft to services and outcomes. In practical terms, AAM shows up as faster delivery of critical goods and medical supplies, improved emergency response and disaster assessment, more efficient inspection of infrastructure and utilities, new tools for manufacturers and service providers to move information and materials, and expanded workforce and access opportunities—particularly in rural or time-sensitive contexts. For businesses and communities, AAM is best understood not as a futuristic mode of travel, but as a service layer that improves speed, reliability, and access across systems people already depend on. Providing clear use-case guides, economic impact framing, and integration pathways is therefore not ancillary work—it is essential infrastructure for adoption. As the AAM Index Survey suggests, interest is already present; what’s missing is a common, accessible way to connect that interest to real-world application, investment decisions, and quality-of-life outcomes.

From Takeoff to Sustained Flight

What 2025 demonstrated is that Michigan’s AAM ecosystem is no longer hypothetical—it is operational. The next challenge is ensuring that this activity is not only coordinated, but understood and usable by the businesses, communities, and institutions it is meant to serve.

As Michigan moves into 2026:

• Readiness will outperform rhetoric

• Information clarity will unlock participation

• Governance capacity will differentiate leaders from observers

• Regional coordination will matter more than isolated pilots

• Public-value use cases will define credibility

Michigan has reached takeoff. Sustained flight will depend on closing the integration gap, aligning with evolving federal expectations, and positioning the state competitively within an increasingly global AAM market.