Is that a flying taxi finally coming into view?
The dream of a cheap, safe, quiet trip in an electric aircraft has long been promised. Now an aviation chief has predicted we are on the cusp of a “new revolution” and issued a rallying call, saying the industry was at an “inflection point”.
Sir Stephen Hillier, chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), has predicted the “widespread adoption” of flying taxis, with the first commercial flight in an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft due at the Paris Olympics next year.
Flying taxis are gathering momentum as the aerospace industry toils to deliver a solution to congested cities and so-called road and rail notspots that will help urban and regional travellers in an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way.
Firms have alighted upon eVTOLs — large, drone-like aircraft powered by batteries. They are 100 times quieter than a helicopter, making them barely audible from the ground.
The US company Joby has just delivered its first eVTOL to the US air force, which will use it for logistics missions at its Edwards base in California. A Joby executive told the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Future of Flight conference last week that its model “sounds like the wind in the trees”.
Professor Dame Helen Atkinson, pro-vice-chancellor of the school of aerospace, transport and manufacturing at Cranfield University in Bedfordshire, told those gathered that they were “on the verge of a once-in-a-lifetime disruption of the transport sector”.
She added: “I was incredibly struck by the momentum around this, that imminence of actual delivery of operational eVTOL vehicles ... real operational infrastructure. Moving from demonstration towards reality.”
Last year the world’s first “vertiport” for air taxis, seen as a crucial step towards widespread use, was unveiled in Coventry. In the next few months a British company, Vertical Aerospace, will give the first public demonstration of a piloted prototype, with commercial operations set to start in 2026.
Stephen Fitzpatrick, the company’s founder and chief executive, said: “The technology we need to make these air taxis, we have today. And we are in the process of demonstrating that they meet the very, very rigorous safety standards that you need to manufacture commercial aircraft [a failure rate of one in a billion]. So we’re in the certification phase, and probably two to three years away from the first commercial air taxis hitting the market.”
The demand is there, according to the consultancy EA Maven. It has estimated a potential UK market of 4.7 million travellers a week along 390 routes using 32 existing airports.
There are about 7,000 air taxis on order to airlines and other companies, and the latest prediction of the market stands at $68 billion by 2032.
The CAA chairman has urged regulators in the US and Europe to make sure they do not become responsible for a bottleneck. Hillier told the Financial Times of the need to work together to avoid “divergent regulation”.
The US recognises the opportunities: President Biden has nominated Michael Whitaker, who had been leading efforts to develop air taxis for an affiliate of Hyundai, to run the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Going the other way is Billy Nolen, the organisation’s acting administrator, who has left to join the flying taxi company Archer Aviation.
The FAA has a plan for flying taxis “at scale” by 2028, when the aircraft could be used to avoid the notorious Los Angeles traffic during the Olympics.
The German company Volocopter is due to be the first to market, with its two-seater (one pilot and one passenger) VoloCity air taxi due for launch in Paris next year. It will have a 20-mile range and speeds of almost 70mph.
Fitzpatrick described Paris as “a great milestone” that would help to drive the industry forwards. For the UK, he said, flying in an air taxi from Heathrow to Canary Wharf would cost £50 a passenger for a four-seat aircraft, with a journey time of eight to ten minutes. A traditional taxi would take up to two hours during rush hour and cost £150.
Fitzpatrick concedes, however, that it will be a while before any big city turns into a Jetsons-like world of flying taxis. “We’re going to need more infrastructure; we’re going to need more pilots,” he said. “But the technology is there today.”
Things are looking up
Hopes are high for flying taxis (or eVTOLs, as the industry likes to call them). Here’s why:
• Vertical Aerospace’s VX4 costs about £3 million and has a cruising speed of 150mph. It is designed to carry five people, with a range of 100 miles and zero emissions.
• It is estimated to be 100 times safer than a helicopter, with a failure rate of one in a billion against one in ten million, thanks in part to its four propellers.
• It is 100 times quieter than a helicopter, and cheaper to run too, at about £1 per passenger mile, compared with nearly £5 for an equivalent helicopter.
• The recharging time required for a flight from Canary Wharf to Heathrow is about six or seven minutes. Little maintenance is required compared with jets, which must be serviced as often as every 500 flying hours.
• However, take-offs are weighed down by paperwork; a test flight 15cm off the ground required 1,000 pages of documentation.
