Flying Taxis

Flying taxis help business travellers escape the gridlock

It is high time we thought the new category of business travel, the genesis of the ultra-short-haul market. Urban congestion is driving innovators to reach for the stars or at least as high as the layer of under-utilised airspace sandwiched between the rooftops and the altitude beneath commercial airline traffic. The basic premise of that argument is that there’s going to be a growing need for on-demand airborne vehicles, so business travellers can get around quickly, calling for a ride with a tap on their smartphones.

Vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) craft require less space and infrastructure to get into the air. That means more fighters on a single aircraft carrier or smaller airports in more remote places. Flying taxis with VTOL technology will also take off and land vertically from skyports dotted around town, on top of office buildings and at publicly accessible spaces. Helicopters have been around for decades, but they’re noisy, pricey and use tons of fossil fuel. This invention will keep the promises of taking off and landing urban business travel with no damage to the environment.

There are more than 40 vertical take-off and landing aircraft, most of which electrically powered, known as eVTOLs, at various stages of development. However, more investments are needed to build existing VTOL technology. Investor appetite for vertical eVTOLs is being turbocharged by a specific initiative from urban mobility’s biggest taxi service, Uber.

According to Uber, in 2017 ‘over $1 billion of private sector investment has already been made in the ondemand aviation ecosystem, supporting several highprofile VTOL fundraising events and aerospace M&A activity’.

During the summit hosted by Uber in LA for exploring the future of urban aviation, it was mentioned that on-demand ultrashort- haul flights are a logical progression in the evolution of urban business travel.

‘Places like Brazil need it more and their desire for innovation is greater. São Paulo is one of the busiest cities in the world with terrible traffic. Anyone with a C-level – the highest level – job travels to work by helicopter and lands on the roof of the building because it just takes too long by road,’ says Adam Twidell, chief executive of private charter flight-booking service PrivateFly.

During May’s Uber Summit, Brazilian plane maker Embraer, famous for its regional and business jets, announced the set-up of Embraer X, which will see the manufacturer collaborating with Uber on its own eVTOL concept.

Antonio Campello, president and chief executive of Embraer X, says they are developing solutions to bring on-demand air transportation to urban areas to improve the quality of life for millions of people. ‘Our collaboration with main stakeholders will accelerate the arrival of this new ecosystem,’ says Campello X.

Until recently, flying taxis might have seemed like the stuff of science fiction. But as long as getting across town becomes more burdensome, and with investors entranced by the prospect of being early to market in backing the right bits of the eVTOL ecosystem, the skylines of our cities could soon look very different.

Adapted from the Raconteur website