Urban-Air Port’s Ricky Sandhu Provides a Detailed Review of Air One’s Public Event (Part Two)

Sand­hu con­tin­ues to pro­vide details about the great suc­cess of the ‘Air One’ ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture event in Coven­try, opened to the pub­lic for free view­ing between April 25th and May 14th.

Ricky Sand­hu

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Chris Stonor Asks The Ques­tions.

How did the pub­lic react to the Super­nal eVTOL?

They were blown away. Many asked ques­tions like, ‘How fast and how far can it fly… the pas­sen­ger cost and so on’ and we answered them. The fact they could see the air­craft, in situ, while actu­al small­er eVTOL flights were going on, the imag­i­na­tion can more eas­i­ly stretch to the big­ger pic­ture. Peo­ple were gen­uine­ly excit­ed.

Were there any neg­a­tive com­ments about the event?

In all hon­esty, I didn’t come across any. On the tours peo­ple often asked inter­est­ing ques­tions. One was on the local air reg­u­la­tion chal­lenges; how Coven­try City Air­port might deal with eVTOLs in its air­space, but, no, I don’t remem­ber any neg­a­tive com­ments.

Did peo­ple like the shop­ping area?

The pub­lic were inter­est­ed in know­ing why cer­tain brands had been cho­sen. We dis­cussed the envi­ron­men­tal rea­sons, for exam­ple, less water used for a prod­uct, the recy­cling aspects, ultra-light and flex­i­ble clothes which means you can get 60 per­cent more in to a suit­case when trav­el­ling.

The kids loved the smart vend­ing machines. They were a big hit. The cafe also did very well. It nor­malised the event expe­ri­ence. It allowed peo­ple to sit down with a cof­fee or tea, get com­fort­able in a chair, and in a relaxed man­ner take in what they saw.

As there was a lot to take in, did some peo­ple return for a sec­ond vis­it?

A num­ber of peo­ple told us they had returned for anoth­er look, often with addi­tion­al fam­i­ly or friends, as more tick­ets were made avail­able to book again.

Every­body who came went on a tour. Some were more freestyle, some looked around faster, but there was always one of our team on-hand to answer ques­tions and explain the dis­plays.

What we did was to take a huge risk. Imag­ine if the pub­lic response had been whole-heart­ed­ly neg­a­tive. How would the indus­try have react­ed? For­tu­nate­ly, the response was fan­tas­tic.

Do you feel you changed the public’s per­cep­tion of eVTOLs through this event?

Giv­en the over­whelm­ing pos­i­tive reac­tion, I feel we did. To watch small­er eVTOLs take-off and land. To be able to touch and inter­act with the dis­plays, it helped over­come con­cerns or uncer­tain­ties.

I would imag­ine the Coven­try City Coun­cil were hap­py with how it went?

Coun­cil Mem­bers attend­ed. They were extreme­ly proud we had pulled it off. Hyundai were delight­ed to see so many peo­ple admir­ing their air­craft. And by invit­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all the lead­ing eVTOL com­pa­nies, we brought the indus­try togeth­er.

What have you learned from this event — can you improve on it?

There were var­i­ous things we couldn’t do because of bud­get restraints. Var­i­ous tech­nol­o­gy inte­gra­tions, new designs, brand part­ner­ships that were lined up, but couldn’t intro­duce. There is a lot more we can do.

On reflec­tion, the risks that we took, the chal­lenges faced and over­come, were all worth it.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) Inter­view Sand­hu (Super­nal eVTOL in Back­ground)

Is it true you are tak­ing this event around the UK?

Yes, ‘Air One’ will be mov­ing to a new city. We’ve had inter­est from oth­er UK City Coun­cils. Coven­try is seen by oth­ers as the one to fol­low. We’ll be announc­ing the new site very soon. This will enable us to car­ry out the next lev­el of test­ing with larg­er eVTOLs. Although, the very next event will take place abroad as we plan to take ‘Air One’ also around the world. The City will be announced short­ly.

In the UK, we are aim­ing to work with Leeds and Leeds air­port in the North. We are in touch with Coun­cils around Lon­don. Abroad, we are talk­ing to inter­est­ed par­ties in Swe­den, Cana­da, North and South Amer­i­ca, Europe and Asia.

I pre­sume you could hold ‘Air One’ events con­cur­rent­ly around the globe?

Absolute­ly.

Have you found a suc­cess­ful way of approach­ing Coun­cils and oth­er author­i­ties to hold an ‘Air One’ event?

We have put togeth­er a droneport plan­ning frame­work for the UK Gov­ern­ment. It is intend­ed for use by oth­er cities, to gain an ini­tial idea on how this type of infra­struc­ture could be inte­grat­ed.

Do you feel the more the pub­lic view ‘Air One’ and are excit­ed by what they see, this may place pres­sure on air reg­u­la­tors and author­i­ties to speed up the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of eVTOLs and con­struc­tion of ver­ti­ports?

Yes, as the pub­lic response was so pos­i­tive towards the Coven­try event, this may well help quick­en the process.

Drones On Dis­play

How would you sum up those three weeks?

The pub­lic response at Coven­try shows there is an appetite, leav­ing aside the need for a future zero car­bon foot­print. There is no ques­tion the eVTOL indus­try will take flight.

The ground infra­struc­ture needs to encom­pass how peo­ple trav­el to an ‘Air One’, the mode of trans­port required, the best use of hydro­gen fuel cells and elec­tric pow­er. The Coven­try event was just a tip of the ice­berg. There is so much more to come.

(Pics: Urban-Air Port)