Volocopter, Atlantia and Aeroporti di Roma partner up to help bring electric air taxis to Italy’s capital city as early as 2023

Volo­copter, the infra­struc­tures’ hold­ing com­pa­ny Atlantia and Aero­por­ti di Roma (ADR), the largest air­port oper­a­tor in Italy, have announced their part­ner­ship to bring elec­tric air taxis to Rome.

This will include a new ser­vice that will con­nect var­i­ous places in the Ital­ian cap­i­tal through ver­ti­cal air­ports, help­ing to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the urban con­ges­tion and CO2 emis­sions.

Togeth­er with the Ital­ian author­i­ties, reg­u­la­tors and Atlantia’s full sup­port, Aero­por­ti di Roma and Volo­copter will also raise pub­lic aware­ness about urban air mobil­i­ty and pave the way to bring it to the coun­try as ear­ly as 2023.

To help with this, Volo­copter’s VoloC­i­ty is cur­rent­ly on dis­play at Fiu­mi­ci­no Air­port until 30th Octo­ber and will then be moved to Rome’s Piaz­za San Sil­ve­stro, where it will remain from 2nd to 4th Novem­ber. These exhi­bi­tions will help the pub­lic learn about elec­tric air taxis and see how this new kind of mobil­i­ty will improve urban life. Those attend­ing will also have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sit inside the VoloC­i­ty mod­el. 

Chris­t­ian Bauer, Chief Com­mer­cial Offi­cer at Volo­copter, said: “We have proven again and again that our air­craft are fly­ing ful­ly-scaled. Now, we are cur­rent­ly focus­ing on putting the UAM ecosys­tem in place in sev­er­al cities, just like Rome, to host our ful­ly elec­tric mobil­i­ty solu­tions upon cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

“There could not be any bet­ter part­ners to bring this excit­ing mode of mobil­i­ty to Italy than ADR, who are recog­nised to be one of the most inno­v­a­tive and sus­tain­able air­ports in Europe.” 

Aero­por­ti di Roma is a leader in sus­tain­able air­port oper­a­tions and has set a clear goal to be Net­Ze­ro by 2030. Recog­nised by Unit­ed Nations’ World Tourism Organ­i­sa­tion (UNTWO) as ‘Lead­ers in Respon­si­ble Trav­el’ and vot­ed ‘Best Air­port’ by ACI Europe three years in a row, the com­pa­ny has ful­ly inte­grat­ed sus­tain­abil­i­ty into its busi­ness mod­el to cre­ate eco­nom­ic, social, and envi­ron­men­tal val­ue, believ­ing that the avi­a­tion sec­tor can and must con­tribute to a change.

From an indus­tri­al and tech­no­log­i­cal point of view, ADR is strong­ly com­mit­ted to the devel­op­ment of the new ver­ti­cal air­ports and, more gen­er­al­ly, to the rapid spread of urban air mobil­i­ty.

Mar­co Tron­cone, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer at Aero­por­ti di Roma, said: “We are proud to con­tribute to shap­ing the future in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Volo­copter, one of the most advanced devel­op­ers for this new type of air­craft and ser­vice: this part­ner­ship tes­ti­fies to ADR’s com­mit­ment towards sus­tain­abil­i­ty and inno­va­tion, as well as to our will to be pio­neer in design­ing the smart mobil­i­ty of the future upon these premis­es.” 

Atlantia — one of the main hold­ing com­pa­nies at glob­al lev­el spe­cialised in strate­gic invest­ments in the air­port and motor­way sec­tor, as well as in the devel­op­ment of new forms of sus­tain­able mobil­i­ty — is the main share­hold­er of Aero­por­ti di Roma and Aéro­ports de la Côte d’Azur.

It has recent­ly invest­ed in Volo­copter, togeth­er with oth­er major inter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies, and the devel­op­ment and pro­mo­tion of busi­ness­es inte­grat­ed with envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion rep­re­sent one of Atlanti­a’s main strate­gic lines of growth. 

Car­lo Bertaz­zo, CEO of Atlantia, added: “We are con­fi­dent that the col­lab­o­ra­tion between ADR and Volo­copter can give rise, in the short term, to impor­tant inno­va­tions from the indus­tri­al point of view. These two com­pa­nies are strong­ly focused on the devel­op­ment of sus­tain­able busi­ness­es and have a strong tech­ni­cal exper­tise.

“As Atlantia, we will con­tin­ue to sup­port the dif­fu­sion of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty in our inter­na­tion­al hub in Rome and in our air­port sys­tem of Niz­za, Cannes and Saint Tropez, proud to be devel­op­ing a new trans­port tech­nol­o­gy that we can then export to our oth­er Euro­pean air­ports, as well as on a glob­al scale.”

Rome is one of the first cities in Europe to com­mit to bring­ing urban air mobil­i­ty ser­vices with Volo­copter, with Paris com­mit­ted to a col­lab­o­ra­tion to bring elec­tric air taxis to the city in time for the 2024 Olympic Games.

Volo­copter takes a holis­tic approach to urban air mobil­i­ty by devel­op­ing a full ecosys­tem that con­nects the nec­es­sary com­po­nents to offer elec­tric flight in cities. The Ger­man com­pa­ny is the only eVTOL devel­op­er with a prod­uct port­fo­lio of mul­ti-copter and fixed-wing designs that can be used for pas­sen­ger and car­go trans­porta­tion.

Through cross-indus­tri­al part­ner­ships, Volo­copter cov­ers all the aspects of the UAM ecosys­tem includ­ing the air­craft, the oper­a­tions, as well as the dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture, VoloIQ, enabling large-scale dig­i­tal vis­i­bil­i­ty of the entire ecosys­tem.