Air taxi

• [New] Roland Berger's latest study predicts 160,000 air taxis by 2050, and the Urban Air Mobility market to be worth $90 billion.
• [New] By 2040, the urban air mobility market will be worth $1.5 tn with 430,000 air taxis globally.
• Air taxi operations are anticipated to begin on a limited scale by 2022, with commercial operations expected as early as 2025.
• Korean carmaker Hyundai plans to invest $1.5 billion in the development of a UAM ecosystem including electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) air taxis and multimodal mobility hubs.
• Enabling the emergence of an entirely electric air taxi service is a natural fit with New Zealand's goal of being zero carbon by 2050.
• Along with Hyundai, Bell is one of six vehicle partners working with Uber to launch electric air taxis, which are due to begin demonstration flights this year and be operational in 2023.
• NASA is working on the Grand Challenge, the first of which will stage a series of UAM demonstration challenges with the aim of accelerating certification, developing flight procedure guidelines, develop airspace operations management and identify community concerns.
• Uber sees the helicopter service as an opportunity to gather data for its plans to launch a fully fledged air taxi business in 2023 using lightweight, electric aircraft.
• The number of ultra-wealthy individuals will increase by 43% by 2022 and the number of demi-wealthy individuals will increase by 39% by 2022, fueling demand of aerospace avionics market during the forecast period.
• The Ehang 184 is a concept for 5G-connected urban air mobility, controlled through a smart city command center, and is set to be a world's first Air Taxi to debut in Qatar for the FIFA World Cup in 2022.
• A new study analysing whether commercial timelines for developing e-air taxi services at scale are feasible pours cold water on the idea of rapid adoption.
• Uber has a target date of 2023 to launch Uber Air, while others in the market think it will take far longer for flying taxis to get the blessing of the Federal Aviation Administration.
• The ride hailing company is adamant that it will have a fleet of air taxis in operation by 2023, dubbed UberAir.
• In the US, by the year 2020, the air taxi market has a potential demand of approximately 55,000 daily trips that can be served by 4,000 aircraft.
• Air taxis will soon be hovering over Singapore's skies as trials are set to get underway in 2019.
• Dubai Road and Transport Authority's target date for implementation of a regulated air taxi service remained 2022 but did not rule out the idea that market competition could lead to a surprise announcement at Dubai Expo 2020.
• Plans to bring low-flying air taxi services to Australian cities by companies such as Uber are credible and could be in place within five years, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority says.
• Trials for air taxis will take off in Singapore in the second half of 2019, with German company Volocopter to conduct flight tests.
• Hillwood is the company behind Frisco Station, a new kind of mixed-use development that will also be one of the world's first hubs for the Uber Elevate air taxi service.
• Kitty Hawk is already reportedly working on an Uber-like app that will allow customers to hail one of its air taxis.
• Annual growth rates vary by type of aircraft and the FAA projects that the more expensive and sophisticated turbine-powered fleet will grow at an average of 2.6% annually over the next two decades.
• Fleets of self-piloted craft could be hovering above city streets and dodging skyscrapers within a decade.

Last updated: 22 November 2020