THE NEXT BIG THING

The ‘next big thing’ in aviation isn’t very big at all. Half-plane, half-helicopter, the air taxi is more a fattened drone, designed initially to carry up to four passengers and a pilot, but eventually and ideally to fly itself.

It will take off and land vertically, and fly very short distances at very high speeds, but more efficiently, affordably and unobtrusively than a helicopter, whizzing between micro-terminals called ‘vertiports’ to enable rapid travel over traffic-jammed cities, speedy connections to regional centres, and a range of less-structured journeys, from sightseeing to lifesaving.

It will be electrically powered, creating no emissions, and next-to-no noise from its multiple propellors or ducts, important not so much for gaining community approval as for dodging community disapproval. And it will, its supporters claim, be at the forefront of aviation’s own new industrial revolution.

But will the air taxi really take off? Or is it a flight of fancy? The answer seems somewhere in between.

“This is the most exciting time in aviation for almost a century,” enthused Stephen Fitzpatrick, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vertical Aerospace, a British start-up which not only has proposed “a revolutionary flying taxi” to commence commercial service in 2024, but also convinced some of the biggest brands in aviation, aerospace, and technology to invest in the vision.

Almost a century ago really was an exciting time in aviation. In 1924, four aviators of the US Army Services, flying a pair of open-cockpit Douglas World Cruisers, completed the first aerial circumnavigation of earth, a 175-day, 74-stop expedition of 42,378 kilometres, from Washington (State) to Washington (D.C.), to see if global economic and social connectivity could be delivered by air. (Turned out it could).

Will the arrival of air taxis be more exciting than that? Or than other seismic developments in aviation, like the jet engine, supersonic flight, or the Boeing 747 ‘jumbo jet’, which reshaped and democratised long haul international travel in ways never before imagined?

Inventors and investors think so, having, via special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), tipped tens of billions of dollars into electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing aircraft, or eVTOLs, the proper technical name for air taxis.

They’ve also collectively lost tens of billions, as the increasingly crowded market has caused some buyers to bail, spurred by the opportunity of cut-and-run profit-taking, or uncertainty if they’re investing in futures or fizzers.

But the true believers have persisted, arguing that, as cities grapple with soaring population and traffic growth, and pressure to decarbonise, zero-emission, high-speed eVTOLS will help ease surface transport congestion and, to some extent, the CO2 it emits, while also massively shaving short haul connectivity times. ?

Last year, Fitzpatrick announced not just an A-list of inaugural investors in Vertical Aerospace, but also “commercial partnerships and conditional pre-orders” for up to 1,000 aircraft (since grown to over 1,350), demonstrating either that the serious players see a serious future in air taxis, or that he is simply one hell of a salesman.

Among those on board for the Vertical liftoff (though not yet that of its VA-X4 aircraft, which is still to fly) were the world’s largest airline, American, one of the biggest lessors of commercial aircraft, Ireland’s Avolon, aerospace giants Rolls Royce and Honeywell, and venture capital vehicles Microsoft M12, 40 North, and Rocket Internet.

Avolon also announced plans to take up to 500 aircraft, American up to 350, and Virgin Atlantic Airways up to 150 for a UK rideshare operation. Japan Airlines, Brazil’s GOL and Malaysia’s Air Asia later announced their own intentions to launch rideshare services with air taxis sourced from Avolon, the only lessor thus far to embrace these craft.

Rival entrepreneurs have also oozed announcements of eVTOL evolution, industrial collaboration, conditional orders, or fresh capital, among them other new aerospace brands like Archer and Beta, Joby and Lilium, VoloCopter and e-Hang.

“We think that eVTOL aircraft will eventually become a standard means of transportation for our whole society,” enthused Lilium. “In the 2030-45 timeframe, using eVTOL aircraft will be as normal as driving a car today.”

In Japan, All Nippon Airways is teaming with Joby to develop express air services between Osaka Station and Kansai International Airport, ahead of the Osaka World Expo in 2025, to reduce connection time from one hour by car by around 15 minutes by air taxi. Archer has announced deals including eVTOLs for United Airlines, while Lilium lists among the customers for its tilt-duct craft the Brazilian airline Azul and private aviation group NetJets.

Also entering this space are legacy aircraft manufacturers, the regional jet maker Embraer, whose Eve air taxi division has announced “provisional sales commitments” for up to 1,750 eVTOLs, while Airbus progresses its CityAirbus NextGen concept, and Boeing backs California-based Wisk, which is focused on autonomous craft.

The Vertical Flight Society, based in Fairfax, Virginia, is a leading authority on and advocate for air taxis. In 2017, the group launched a website to catalogue all known eVTOL programmes, which VFS Executive Director Mike Hirschberg recently recalled was “about a dozen” back then. “Since some innovative designs that seemed implausible at the time continued maturing into plausible approaches, we decided to catalogue every known design, from the silly to the serious,” he said.

By the first quarter of this year, VFS had listed some 600 eVTOL designs from 350 companies, observing that in the past 18 months the number of concepts, “both active and defunct”, doubled, while the European Air Safety Authority (EASA) estimated around 200 active projects.

Some will fly. But many won’t. And most orders are conditional because these things are yet to be proved and approved. A study by Netherlands-based M3 Consultancy concluded: “There are hundreds of eVTOL initiatives across the globe, but only a handful have secured sufficient funding to finance the lengthy and costly certification process.” ?

Global strategy consultancy Roland Berger says there are currently 300 sustainable aircraft developments underway, from air taxis to electric and hydrogen-powered regional planes. It predicts that by 2030, 7,000 eVTOLs will be flying worldwide, rising to 48,500 by 2040, and 116,000 by 2050, just over half of which (82,500) are expected to fly in the Asia Pacific region, followed by the Americas (33 percent), Europe (11) and “rest of world” (four). China, the largest single market, is expected to account for 39,000 air taxis by 2050 – one third of the projected global total.

But Roland Berger also notes a shift to inter-city, rather than the heavily-hyped intra-city operations, as battery and hydrogen propulsion technologies improve, observing: “As the shorter-range urban air taxi (or urban air mobility craft) space becomes more crowded, companies are pushing towards longer-range use cases to meet inter-city transport needs.”

In the Netherlands, four regional airports – Eindhoven, Rotterdam-The Hague, Groningen-Eelde, and Maastrict-Aachen – are partnering in a project called Power-Up, designed to achieve short-range commercial flights with electric planes by 2026.

Roel Hellemons, Chief Executive Officer of Eindhoven Airport, says Power-Up is focused on eCTOL (electric Conventional Takeoff or Landing) aircraft “because we believe that this technology will have the highest value for the regions in terms of travel time reduction, travel cost reduction, and environmental benefits.”

Amidst all the hoopla around air taxis, there is still a chasm between concept and commercialisation, for no matter how quickly these craft are designed, tested, and built, and how enticingly they are marketed, they’ll go nowhere without clear regulations in the air and on the ground, takeoff and landing infrastructure (vertiports), electric charging facilities (ideally dispensing sustainably-produced power), and safe, guaranteed access to airspace.

Critically, nor will they fly without public acceptance - the all-important ‘social licence to operate’ unobtrusively, and safely for those in the air and on the ground – which will hinge on skilled consultation with communities, not just to assure them of benefits, but also to reassure them of protection from disbenefits.

“To make eVTOLS attractive, you need a vertiport close to the point of departure and final destination,” says Hellemons. “Once an eVTOL is certified, it can already fly to and from existing airports and heliports. However, developing new vertiports near or at cities is challenging. In the Netherlands there is little ambition on this front – yet – compared to some other countries like UK and Spain. We expect it will be difficult to get approval quickly for vertiports in the built-up areas, at least until the technology has been proven in safety and noise.” Beyond 2030, he says, when the eVTOL market is more mature, “we expect the main-use cases to be inter-city flights for distances of 50-150/200 kilometres.”

Observed Vertical Aerospace: “Even based on the most pessimistic industry analyst forecasts, an AAM (advanced air mobility) ecosystem will emerge rapidly in countries that embrace the technology.” But it added, with more than a hint of urgency: “Most stakeholders have not yet grasped how soon this will happen. The speed with which a new paradigm of transit will be deployed across society will be unprecedented.” In other words, the technology is developing faster than the capability to manage it, and potentially the willingness of communities to accept it.

M3 highlighted research in Europe which concluded that dedicated vertiports wouldn’t be viable for less than 50 flights per day. And that’s without considering the even bigger issue of how communities can be convinced to accept a high level of low-level flights, where none currently exist.

In some big-name cities, plans are advancing for air taxis to support major events, including the Paris summer Olympics in 2024, Osaka Expo in 2025, Milan winter Olympics in 2026, and Los Angeles summer games in 2028. Air-ground partnerships have also been established in other locations, such as Singapore and Miami, to help get other projects off the ground. ?

But it isn’t the same everywhere. “There needs to be a clear vision and a clear pathway to commercialisation,” says Sara Hales, Managing Director of Australian aviation consultancy AVISTRA, a strong advocate for eVTOL operations.

“Right now, there’s not. Aside from the regulatory challenges, there’s a missing piece around community acceptance and truly understanding the business cases. In order to progress the adoption of the technology, someone needs to pull together lots of organisations and governments.”

Her company has just launched Greenbird, an advocacy arm to help coordinate disparate stakeholders, and collectively develop, articulate and deliver viable eVTOL operations. Greenbird is based near Brisbane, host city for the 2032 Olympics, which represents a major opportunity for air taxi operations, says Hales - but not the only opportunity.

“The conversations so far have been largely focused on the concepts of air taxis and urban usage. For us, though, there’s also a lot of interest in and excitement about regional air mobility, for transferring personnel onto oil rigs, marine pilotage services, civil defence, search and rescue, inter-regional connectivity. These are resilient B2B activities that are not just performed in good times, or when people are on holiday. They’re performed all the time. And they don’t have the same urban challenges.”?

Clem Newton-Brown is Chief Executive of another Australian company, Skyportz, which is firmly focused not on the excitement of flying taxis, but on their enabling infrastructure. He has secured options on some 400 sites across Australia and New Zealand as potential locations for vertiports.

“Until recently, I was seen as that crazy guy talking about flying saucers,” says Newton-Brown. “But people are now starting to think about being part of something that is going to be game changing.

“There appears no doubt now that a handful of frontrunners in the electric air taxi space will produce aircraft certified for commercial use,” he says. “But the key to unlocking the potential of the industry has not yet been found – regulatory approvals for a vast number of new vertiports to enable air taxis to deliver you right to your destination.”

Before vertiport locations can be chosen, he says, networks need to be developed, approved, and accepted by communities, as do airspace corridors.

“At the moment the aircraft don’t exist, and planning rules around the world don’t allow for them. The big unknown which could sink all this potential is community licence. The time is right now for the property industry, governments and regulators to start seriously thinking about this,” he says, if the next big thing is to achieve lift off.