Tears of the Kingdom won't be the first Zelda game that dives into the idea of a sky world. There was the Palace of Winds in the Four Swords saga, which became Vaati's Palace. The Minish Cap also featured the Cloud Tops as an area as a home to the "Wind Tribe". Twillight Princess then came up with the City in the Sky, the home to the odd Oocca tribe. And finally there was Skyloft in Skyward Sword.
However, with the exception of Skyward Sword, all of these were just single locations set in the sky. And in Skyward Sword you had your trusty Loftwing to fly from one island in the sky to the other.
What will differentiate Tears of the Kingdom from what came before is the fact that it won't be as simple this time. There will be many islands in the sky with vastly different altitudes and there will be a number of ways of traveling to them. You may be able to fly from one island to the next using your Paraglider or sky diving skills, but of course this won't let you go up higher, unless there are some updrafts along the way. You can use fallen debris as some sort of elevator thanks to your new time reversal mechanic.
Also, you seemingly have some kind of ability that lets you morph through certain ceilings and there might be portals or something alike that will take you to the islands. Maybe they will even bring back the Hookshot, which would be a useful tool to travel between closer islands.
But with all of this in mind, it seems unlikely that the game will feature something like the Loftwing from Skyward Sword, simply because it would make it completely trivial to get to the different islands, with the exception of maybe what's inside the huge thunderstorm cloud. There are special mechanical gliders that you will be able to use to fly around, but we don't know how much control you will have over them. It's likely that it won't be that much...
If there is something similar to the Loftwing in the game, then it will likely be some endgame reward, where you have already explored most of the sky world anyway. Kind of like how the Master Cycle Zero is given to you after you've finished all the story stuff in Breath of the Wild.
However, there is still the question of the Rito... Link doesn't really need a Loftwing as long as he has his bird friends.
In Breath of the Wild Teba was the one who brought you up to Vah Medoh. So, what will stop him or any Rito for that matter to do the same favor for you in Tears of the Kingdom?
Well, this speaks for the idea that the sky islands are truly the Sacred Realm and hidden behind some cloud barrier that maybe only Link (and the dragons) can cross. The Rito may not even be able to see the islands, let alone pass through the barrier...
Otherwise the developers would need to find some other excuse, where for example Rito Village could be stuck under strong storm clouds. But the Rito are traveling all over Hyrule, where you could still find some at Gerudo Village or in Tarrey Town for example. So, there wouldn't be an easy way of keeping any Rito from helping you, unless the sky islands are really inside a different realm that they can't reach.
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