Wisk Aero Partners with Queensland Local Government on Australian Air Mobility

Wisk Aero has part­nered with the Coun­cil of May­ors of South East Queens­land to intro­duce a safe, sus­tain­able, and scal­able, autonomous air taxi ser­vice, and will hire addi­tion­al Aus­tralian-based per­son­nel.

Wisk CEO Gary Gysin said: “We are proud to engage with the Coun­cil of May­ors to intro­duce AAM that will ben­e­fit local com­mu­ni­ties and indus­try as a whole, and build on the rela­tion­ships we have in Aus­tralia to make safe, all-elec­tric, autonomous flight a real­i­ty.”

The Coun­cil of May­ors Chair, Bris­bane Lord May­or Adri­an Schrin­ner, said that South East Queens­land offered a mix of rur­al, beach, and city land­scapes mak­ing it the per­fect loca­tion to tri­al and launch new and inno­v­a­tive indus­tries.

Wisk will work with the local gov­ern­ment to pro­vide green tourism and trans­port options, and will also dis­play its 5th gen­er­a­tion air­craft in Bris­bane in July.

Lord Schrin­ner con­tin­ued: “Col­lab­o­ra­tion between our Coun­cils is crit­i­cal to ensure the indus­try under­stands the needs of our com­mu­ni­ties, and also enables our Coun­cils to sup­port a con­sis­tent and col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to plan­ning and reg­u­la­tion crit­i­cal to invest­ment and roll­out across our region.

“Coun­cil of May­ors kick­start­ed our Bris­bane 2032 Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games jour­ney because we knew it would attract glob­al busi­ness­es and inno­v­a­tive indus­tries to our region, bring­ing with it new jobs and new eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties.

“We expect to see the emer­gence of advanced air tech­nol­o­gy in places like Paris and Los Ange­les, and by 2032 I would love to see it sup­port­ing new and inno­v­a­tive expe­ri­ences for tourism and trav­el in South East Queens­land.”

Wisk’s Asia Pacif­ic region­al direc­tor Cather­ine Mac­Gowan said: “Our work has the poten­tial to accel­er­ate the intro­duc­tion of emis­sions-free avi­a­tion, to help reduce trans­port-dri­ven car­bon emis­sions, and to realise the ben­e­fits of AAM for the Queens­land state econ­o­my and the well­be­ing of its cit­i­zens.”

In March, Sky­portz, Sea World Heli­copters, Secure Park­ing and Gold Coast May­or Tom Tate joined forces to make SE Queens­land the cen­tre of the emerg­ing elec­tric air taxi indus­try in Aus­tralia, in time for the Bris­bane Olympics.

Last Decem­ber, Eve Air Mobil­i­ty announced that it would help accel­er­ate the devel­op­ment of Australia’s urban air mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem by part­ner­ing with Nau­tilus Avi­a­tion, North­ern Australia’s largest heli­copter oper­a­tor, to intro­duce Eve’s eVTOL air­craft at Queensland’s most icon­ic tourism attrac­tions, includ­ing the Great Bar­ri­er Reef.