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InterGlobe and Archer on Course for “Route and Fare Plans for Indian City eVTOL Services”

Inter­Globe Enter­pris­es, which owns Indi­Go, the largest air­line in India, and Archer Avi­a­tion are on course with their plans to launch fly­ing taxi ser­vices between Del­hi and Gur­gaon, Ben­galu­ru city and its inter­na­tion­al air­port, as well as Ban­dra to Cola­ba in Mum­bai, poten­tial­ly from 2026, reports The Times of India.

Accord­ing to the news­pa­per, quot­ing Nikhil Goel, CCO of Archer, the cost per pas­sen­ger for using a Mid­night eVTOL ser­vice between Del­hi and Gur­gaon, for exam­ple, (some 28 km in just 7 min­utes), would be a “slight pre­mi­um” over Uber (Rs 2,000–3,000  or USD24 to USD36), com­pared to (Rs 1,500–2,000) for a com­par­a­tive road taxi trip. Yet, the Mid­night flight would take just 7 min­utes com­pared with six­ty to nine­ty min­utes by road, depend­ing on the con­ges­tion sever­i­ty. The fares for Uber and oth­er aggre­ga­tors are vari­able and based on demand.

Air taxi tri­al flights will go ahead with the per­mis­sion from India’s Direc­torate Gen­er­al of Civ­il Avi­a­tion (DGCA) as ear­ly as next year, before the com­mer­cial launch the fol­low­ing year.

(Cred­it: Times of India)

After com­menc­ing oper­a­tions next year in the U.S, the next des­ti­na­tions for Archer will be India and the UAE. Del­hi-NCR, India’s Nation­al Cap­i­tal region, where Inter­globe’s HQ is based in Gur­gaon, is expect­ed to be the first loca­tion to receive a fly­ing taxi ser­vice.

Goel com­ment­ed, “We are delight­ed to work with Rahul (Bha­tia, Indi­Go founder and Inter­globe Head) and his team to launch our elec­tric air taxis. We have under­tak­en mul­ti­ple vis­its to India to engage with impor­tant reg­u­la­to­ry, gov­ern­ment and indus­try fig­ures in order to expe­dite our advance­ments in the region.”

Mean­while, IndiGo’s agreed pur­chase of up to 200 Mid­night eVTOLs in a deal val­ued at USD1 bil­lion, remains sol­id. The part­ners plan to col­lab­o­rate on con­struct­ing ver­ti­ports which include charg­ing facil­i­ties as well as train­ing pilots. 

While ink­ing the deal last Novem­ber, Bha­tia remarked, “We are excit­ed at this new oppor­tu­ni­ty of bring­ing an effec­tive, futur­is­tic and sus­tain­able trans­port solu­tion by intro­duc­ing Archer’s elec­tric air­craft to India.”

Archer is start­ing pro­duc­tion of Mid­night at its U.S Geor­gia fac­to­ry this year. The com­pa­ny is col­lab­o­rat­ing with car man­u­fac­tur­er giant, Stel­lan­tis, to pro­duce air taxis in var­i­ous loca­tions, includ­ing India.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.archer.com/usher/

https://www.goindigo.in/

(News Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com)

(Top graph­ic image: Mid­night Fly­ing over India, Cred­it — Archer Avi­a­tion)

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