Eve Air Mobility to begin urban air mobility simulation flights in Rio de Janeiro from next month

Embraer’s Eve Air Mobil­i­ty will begin an Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM) sim­u­la­tion on Novem­ber 8^th, which will con­nect Rio de Janeiro’s Bar­ra da Tiju­ca to the city’s Tom Jobim Inter­na­tion­al Air­port – RIO­galeão.

The ini­tia­tive will use a heli­copter and be car­ried out in coop­er­a­tion with strate­gic part­ners and gov­ern­ment enti­ties. The eval­u­a­tion of the entire UAM ecosys­tem and the main con­cepts relat­ed to future oper­a­tions will last a month, with six dai­ly flights at a more afford­able cost than a con­ven­tion­al heli­copter ser­vice.

The sim­u­la­tion applies prices ​​close to those expect­ed in the future for an elec­tric ver­ti­cal take-off and land­ing air­craft (eVTOL), also known in the mar­ket as an Elec­tric Ver­ti­cal Air­craft (EVA).

The air­craft will be oper­at­ed on the route by Helisul Avi­ação, one of the largest heli­copter oper­a­tors in Latin Amer­i­ca. Uni­ver­sal Avi­a­tion, a glob­al air­port ser­vices com­pa­ny, will run ground oper­a­tions.

André Stein, Eve’s CEO, said: “Eve’s human-cen­tred approach to devel­op­ment seeks prac­ti­cal val­i­da­tion of con­cepts and assump­tions that will help us under­stand and address the key chal­lenges asso­ci­at­ed with deliv­er­ing the ser­vice. Rio de Janeiro is one of the cities with the worst traf­fic in the world, and the sim­u­la­tion will help us to sur­vey the real needs of users, part­ners, and the com­mu­ni­ty who will ben­e­fit from our mobil­i­ty solu­tions.”

The con­ces­sion­aire, RIO­galeão, and the Mario Hen­rique Simon­sen Busi­ness Cen­ter (CEMHS) com­plete the part­ner­ship as the points of ori­gin and des­ti­na­tion, relat­ed to the expe­ri­ence.

The UAM indus­try intends to democ­ra­tise access to the new air trans­port sys­tem using dis­rup­tive inno­va­tions and more afford­able prices. Eve’s air­craft, sched­uled to reach the mar­ket in 2026, will be all-elec­tric and designed with a focus on users, to pro­vide effi­cient and com­fort­able trans­port with low noise lev­els and zero car­bon emis­sions.

The sim­u­la­tion is part of a con­cept of oper­a­tion (CONOPS), start­ed in August 2021 in Rio de Janeiro, aim­ing to inte­grate Urban Air Mobil­i­ty into Brazil­ian air­space.

More than 50 spe­cial­ists from 12 insti­tu­tions are col­lab­o­rat­ing on the ini­tia­tive, map­ping the oper­a­tion and ser­vice process­es to iden­ti­fy the needs of users, the com­mu­ni­ty, and oth­er stake­hold­ers.

The sim­u­la­tion will be mon­i­tored by the Nation­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Agency (ANAC) and the Depart­ment of Air­space Con­trol (DECEA). It has the sup­port of Sky­ports, which is focused on the design, con­struc­tion, and oper­a­tion of ver­ti­ports, EDP, one of the largest com­pa­nies in the ener­gy sec­tor and EmbraerX’s Bea­con plat­form — designed to con­nect indus­try resources, the after­mar­ket sup­ply chain and avi­a­tion pro­fes­sion­als.

Addi­tion­al sup­port comes from Ate­ch, the com­pa­ny respon­si­ble for the devel­op­ment, imple­men­ta­tion, and the Embraer Group’s air traf­fic flow con­trol and man­age­ment sys­tems (civ­il and mil­i­tary).

Tick­ets went on sale yes­ter­day (Tues­day) via Flap­per, the inde­pen­dent plat­form for on-demand flights. The ser­vice is avail­able on www.flyflapper.com.br or in the Flap­per app.