Flying taxis featured at Le Bourget

World premiere at the Paris Air Show. In order to highlight the announced revolution in urban air mobility, the show is hosting, in a space called Paris Air Mobility, the largest exhibition of flying taxis in the world. They are seven in number and are "among the most successful projects in the world", emphasizes Patrick Daher, general commissioner of the show.

The exhibition space also hosts Paris Aéroport and Sita, which present the technologies and infrastructures dedicated to their development, from vertiports to on-board software. Visitors can admire these devices, also called VTOL or eVTOL, with hybrid or electric propulsion, piloted or autonomous, with vertical take-off and landing. The Atea from the French start-up Ascendance Flight Technologies, the machines from the German start-ups Lilium, AutoFlight and Volocopter, from the Americans Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation, from the Brazilian Eve Air Mobility (subsidiary of Embraer) and from the Chinese EHang. Airbus, whose helicopter subsidiary is developing the CityAirbus, offers an immersive flying taxi travel experience. And the engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce a focus on electric propulsion.

On the other hand, the flying taxi developed by the start-up Wisk Aero, of which Boeing has just taken 100% of the capital, by buying the shares of Kitty Hawk, the company of Larry Page, founder of Google, stands apart. Wisk, which is also the name of the machine, "exhibits in another space, partner of Paris Air Mobility", specify the organizers of the show.

It is Volocopter which holds the star, being the only manufacturer to carry out flight demonstrations of its Volocity. The latter must be the first aircraft of this type to be certified, in 2024, by the European Aviation Safety Agency (Easa). A world first linked to Paris' ambition to become the first city in the world to offer this new mode of transport, as part of the 2024 Olympic Games.

In November 2022, the Volocity carried out a ten-minute demonstration flight, after taking off from the Pontoise vertiport, in the Paris suburbs. Since then, the two-seater device has continued its test campaign. Volocopter plans to open three Parisian lines - Roissy-Le Bourget, Le Bourget-Austerlitz and Issy-les-Moulineaux-Saint-Cyr-l'École - in 2025.

Flying taxis have their place at Le Bourget because the projects are reaching a certain maturity. "A few months ago, a milestone was reached: we went from concepts and models to prototypes and test flights," says Jean-Baptiste Nau, Senior Project Manager at Archery Strategy Consulting.

From the mid-2000s, the concept was studied by NASA, the American (FAA) and European air safety agencies, but also by Airbus and Boeing and by start-ups. Their objective? Revolutionize air mobility, by offering a flexible, ecological and low-noise alternative to cars stuck in traffic jams in big cities.

The yellow flying taxi of Bruce Willis, alias Korben Dallas, in The Fifth Element, the film by Luc Besson released in 1997, had struck the spirits, with these chase scenes above futuristic megalopolises. However, intra-urban transport, with aircraft picking up their customers on demand, landing and taking off everywhere, flying over cities, is still science fiction.

The first target market is that of shuttles between major cities and airports. This, with regular connections at fixed times and routes, with aircraft flying in air corridors and at dedicated altitudes. Airlines see flying taxis as a way to offer new services to their passengers. United Airlines plans to open, in 2025, a link between the airport and a vertiport in Chicago, with Midnight Archers, of which it has ordered 200 copies. American Airlines secured, in July 2022, a pre-order for 50 VA-X4 (out of 250 in total), the eVTOL designed by Vertical Aerospace. In March 2023, NetJets, a leader in fractional ownership business aviation, signed a purchase agreement for 150 units of the Lilium Jet. Another market targeted by certain players, such as Ascendance Flight Technologies, is the decompartmentalization of territories poorly or not served by train or plane. “Atea, which has a range of 400 km, will offer flexible interregional services between cities that do not have rail or air lines. This is an issue in France, in Europe and in many regions of the world”, specifies Jean-Christophe Lambert, CEO of the French start-up.

Some 170 flying taxi programs are in prototype and test stages around the world. Not all will be certified. Getting that green light is a long and complex process. "The level of security required, with a lot of automation and redundancy, will be very high, especially for aircraft intended to fly over cities", underlines Jean-Baptiste Nau.

The American start-up Joby has already carried out a thousand test flights. And passed, last February, “the second of the five steps required by the FAA (as part of a regulation adopted in 2022, editor’s note) to certify its aircraft”. Wisk is also well advanced, having developed five prototypes since 2011 and completed 1,600 test flights. “The 6th generation Wisk, with electric propulsion, autonomous (without a pilot on board, editor’s note) and four seats, is the product that will be subject to certification”, specifies Sébastien Vigneron, chief engineer of the program.