Middle East: EH216‑S eVTOL “Completes Successful Debut Autonomous Flight in Saudi Arabia”

EHang via a blaze of social media, announced last week its first autonomous air taxi flight in Mec­ca, Sau­di Ara­bia, reports a press release. Part­ner­ing with Front End, a Sau­di-based enter­prise spe­cial­is­ing in advanced solu­tions, this suc­cess­ful demon­stra­tion high­light­ed the trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial of air­craft auton­o­my for the region’s trans­porta­tion sys­tem. 

Local author­i­ties who sup­port­ed the flight includ­ed Sau­di Arabia’s Gen­er­al Author­i­ty of Civ­il Avi­a­tion (GACA); the Min­istry of Trans­port and Logis­tics Ser­vices; the Min­istry of Hajj; and the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or.

Front End’s deter­mi­na­tion to intro­duce cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy to the King­dom, along­side EHang, “has been instru­men­tal in shap­ing a faster, more effi­cient, and sus­tain­able annu­al Hajj pil­grim­age,” explains the release. 

Please Watch Video

الجاسر يدشن تجربة التاكسي الجوي ذاتي القيادة لأول مرة في موسم الحج.#حج1445هـ#يسر_وطمأنينةhttps://t.co/aqYcVPRMyqpic.twitter.com/kdFaRIxKaq

— صحيفة سبق الإلكترونية (@sabqorg) June 12, 2024

“Con­duct­ed in a low-risk area with­in pro­tect­ed air­space,” con­tin­ues the release, “The flight was crit­i­cal in help­ing author­i­ties set the right reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment for deploy­ing pilot­less eVTOL air­craft, there­by enhanc­ing mobil­i­ty, reduc­ing con­ges­tion and pro­mot­ing sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

His Excel­len­cy Abdu­laz­iz Al-Duailej, Pres­i­dent of GACA, com­ment­ed, “This flight marks a major advance­ment in inte­grat­ing Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) solu­tions into Sau­di Arabia’s avi­a­tion land­scape. We are com­mit­ted to the high­est safe­ty stan­dards and its seam­less inte­gra­tion into exist­ing air traf­fic sys­tems.” Adding, “This flight also acts as a proof of con­cept for mul­ti­ple use cas­es and con­tributes to var­i­ous AAM roadmap ini­tia­tives.” 

Majid Alghaslan, Chair­man and CEO of Front End, remarked, “Aligned with Sau­di Vision 2030, our goal is to fos­ter a ‘Con­nect­ed King­dom’, serv­ing as a gate­way for our part­ners to access growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in Sau­di Ara­bia and the wider region.”

He con­tin­ued, “These eco-friend­ly eVTOLs offer a cost-effec­tive solu­tion for urban trans­porta­tion, tack­ling con­ges­tion while align­ing per­fect­ly with the Kingdom’s goals for a sus­tain­able future.”

🇸🇦 Hel­lo Mec­ca! 🇸🇦
With the sup­port of GACA and our part­ner Front End, we’ve suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed the debut flight of our EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL in Sau­di Ara­bia! This marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in EHang’s ongo­ing inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion and an impor­tant step for­ward in… pic.twitter.com/U09I2ScwOQ

— EHang (@ehang) June 12, 2024

Huazhi Hu, Founder, CEO and Chair­man of EHang, said, “This flight marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in EHang’s ongo­ing inter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion. Look­ing ahead, and with the strong sup­port of GACA and in part­ner­ship with Front End, we will work togeth­er to estab­lish a bench­mark for reg­u­lar AAM oper­a­tions in Sau­di Ara­bia.”

For more infor­ma­tion

www.ehang.com

www.frontend.sa

(Top image: VIP guests wit­nessed the EH216‑S pilot­less eVTOL’s debut flight in Sau­di Ara­bia)

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