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Are we ready for Air Taxi Services?

Volocopter certainly believes we are. The German company presented a vision that integrates air taxis into existing transportation systems to provide additional mobility for up to 10'000 passengers per day with a single point to point connection.

Co-founder Alex Zosel expects the first full Volocopter air taxi systems with dozens of Volo-Hubs and Volo-Ports to be in place within the next 10 years, capable of flying 100'000 passengers an hour to their desired destination. "Our ambitions do not end with developing the aircraft,” says Florian Reuter, CEO at Volocopter, “we are here to develop the entire ecosystem making air taxi services a reality across the world. This includes the physical and digital infrastructure to manage unmanned systems.” The infrastructure necessary to operate and scale an air taxi service into a full network system spanning over mega cities consists of Volo-Hubs and Volo-Ports. The Volo-Hubs resemble cable cart stations with Volocopters landing and taking off every 30 seconds for example. Battery packs could be swapped automatically by robots before moving the copter on to the section, where passengers embark for take-off. Volo-Ports on the other hand are expected to expand the Volo-Hub system and offer direct access to a company, shopping mall, hotel or train station for example. They do not require any charging or parking infrastructure and subsequently will be less complex to build, the company believes. Any Heliports, for example, could be used as a Volo-Port with minimal modification. “We expect any air taxi transport system to begin with a point to point connection and over time grow into a system of dozens of Volo-Hubs in a city.” says Alex Zosel, Co-Founder of Volocopter. “Once operated at scale, flying won’t be significantly more expensive than taking a cab, but it will be significantly faster.”

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March 15 2024 2:25 pm V22.4.5-2
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