“Flying Taxis Close to Mass Adoption as Honeywell Study Highlights Increasing Consumer Interest”

Hon­ey­well has released results from a sur­vey this week show­ing U.S air­line fliers, all 98 per­cent of them, would con­sid­er using a fly­ing taxi as part of their trav­el jour­ney, reports press release. 

The sur­vey of 1,000 U.S. adult fliers also dis­cov­ered that almost 8 out of 10 respon­dents or 79 per­cent, would trav­el more often if they could take an air taxi to the air­port.

The release says, “Across trav­ellers, Hon­ey­well researchers deter­mined that the pos­si­bil­i­ty of reduc­ing over­all trav­el time was the biggest fac­tor in their inter­est. Air taxis are seen as a much faster way to tran­si­tion to and from busy air­ports or between near­by cities, with almost half of respon­dents cit­ing “not hav­ing to sit in traf­fic” as a key moti­va­tor (47 per­cent). Oth­er fac­tors include ease of use and con­ve­nience (61 per­cent); cost (61 per­cent); min­i­mal envi­ron­men­tal impact (44 per­cent); and the fun fac­tor or “novelty/curiosity” cit­ed by anoth­er 44 per­cent.

Dave Shill­i­day, VP and Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty at Hon­ey­well Aero­space Tech­nolo­gies, com­ment­ed, “Any­one who trav­els reg­u­lar­ly knows that the jour­ney to and from the air­port often adds unwel­come time, cost and has­sle to the over­all trip. Air taxis can offer a safe, fast and inno­v­a­tive alter­na­tive to tra­di­tion­al trans­port meth­ods. Our research indi­cates sig­nif­i­cant appetite for such ser­vices already exists – but like any new tech­nol­o­gy, con­sumers need to feel con­fi­dent about safe­ty, cost and reli­a­bil­i­ty.” 

He added, “Air taxis may sound like sci­ence fic­tion to some, but we’re not far from a time when they could become a reg­u­lar part of trav­el.”

The Study also showed that Mil­len­ni­als are most enthu­si­as­tic about fly­ing in an air taxi (65 per­cent), com­pared to 58 per­cent of over­all respon­dents, as are those who flew more than 10 times in the past year (67 per­cent), com­pared with those who have tak­en 10 or few­er roundtrips (56 per­cent). Busi­ness trav­ellers are more inter­est­ed than those fly­ing for plea­sure (60 per­cent ver­sus 45 per­cent).

A lead­ing fac­tor to use an air taxi is trav­el­ing between cities that are with­in 100 miles of each oth­er (41 per­cent). For exam­ple, an eVTOL is expect­ed to take well under an hour to trav­el from New York to Philadel­phia, com­pared to two to three hours by car. Oth­er desired uses include jour­neys from a sub­ur­ban air­port to a city cen­tre (31 per­cent) and trav­el­ing to a con­nect­ing flight in a near­by city (28 per­cent).

The study also high­light­ed safe­ty as an impor­tant focus for all fliers, with almost two thirds (65 per­cent) say­ing this is a vital con­sid­er­a­tion. 

Back­ground

The Hon­ey­well Aero­space Study was con­duct­ed by Wake­field Research who ques­tioned 1,000 US adult fliers aged 18 years or more. “Fliers” is defined as those who have tak­en at least five round-trip flights in the 12 months between Decem­ber 2023 and ’24. The sur­vey was con­duct­ed using an email invi­ta­tion fol­lowed by an online sur­vey. 

For more infor­ma­tion

www.honeywell.com/newsroom

www.wakefieldresearch.com

(Images: Cred­it — Hon­ey­well)

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