Flying Taxis: Beyond Paris, Onwards to L.A (Part 4)

The series of three fea­tures dis­cussing the hopes and aspi­ra­tions sur­round­ing air taxis fly­ing over Paris dur­ing the 2024 Olympics, is com­plete. The final step is to look beyond, lead­ing up to the Los Ange­les Games four years lat­er.

The time­line is per­fect for the eVTOL indus­try to improve its air­craft and com­mu­ni­ca­tion sys­tems, design flight routes, along­side devel­op­ing the gen­er­al ecosys­tem, while exten­sive­ly engag­ing with the pub­lic along the way, as it offers a serendip­i­tous jour­ney towards L.A in 2028.

2025: Osa­ka World Expo, Japan

After the many expe­ri­ences, lessons and knowl­edge gained from Paris, the indus­try has an oppor­tu­ni­ty to real­ly unfurl its car­bon-free wings a year lat­er at the World Expo in Osa­ka, Japan. What makes this event unusal is the length of time. It will take place for six months, open­ing April 13th and clos­ing Novem­ber 23rd.

Osa­ka is plan­ning for air taxis to fly on eight dif­fer­ent routes lead­ing to 20 flights per hour. Yes, 20 an hour or, over 6 months, using 8 hours a day as a guide, poten­tial­ly around 28,800 air taxi rides! These craft will con­nect Yumeshi­ma to air­ports and oth­er loca­tions in and around Osa­ka, Kobe and Kyoto.

Var­i­ous eVTOL com­pa­nies will be involved includ­ing EHang, Joby and Volo­copter, no doubt, as well as less­er known ones like Sky­Drive*, fly­ing the pub­lic from spe­cif­ic cen­tres via spe­cial­ly con­struct­ed ver­ti­ports or con­vert­ed heli­ports across the water to the exhi­bi­tion Halls at Yumeshi­ma, Osaka’s arti­fi­cial island.

Those eVTOL com­pa­nies who have secured full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion by April, 2025 could become part of a com­mer­cial bonan­za. Oth­ers like Eve, for exam­ple, who non­chant­ly talk of cer­ti­fy­ing in 2026, may bad­ly miss out.

*Last year, Tokyo-based Sky­Drive signed a part­ner­ship agree­ment with the Osa­ka Pre­fec­tur­al Gov­ern­ment to have a fleet of eVTOLs ready for use dur­ing the Expo.

Poten­tial des­ti­na­tions include the city itself; the Osa­ka Bay area; Osa­ka Inter­na­tion­al Air­port; and Kan­sai Inter­na­tion­al. Des­ti­na­tions in Kobe include the city and its Air­port. Oth­er poten­tial loca­tions are Awa­ji Island near Kobe and the region sur­round­ing Kyoto and Ise-Shi­ma. Direct flights as well as scenic routes are being dis­cussed.

While the plan is still in draft form, a work­ing group led by the Japan Asso­ci­a­tion for the 2025 World Expo­si­tion and the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Trade and Indus­try is explor­ing var­i­ous pro­pos­als. Man­u­fac­tur­ers and oth­er oper­a­tors are soon to be select­ed, where con­tracts will be award­ed to mul­ti­ple can­di­dates in craft devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion. The project will also select can­di­dates to man­age take­off and land­ing sites. Routes and fares will be deter­mined after talks between oper­a­tors and the Asso­ci­a­tion.

Sky­Drive to Fly “Fleet of eVTOLs” at Osa­ka (pic: Sky­drive)

The Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Tourism plans to devel­op the reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work by no lat­er than 2024. Reg­u­la­tion is key, in par­tic­u­lar, ful­ly cer­ti­fy­ing craft before they can com­mer­cial­ly fly, while Air Traf­fic sys­tems must be put in place to man­age the pro­posed busy air taxi routes in already crowd­ed skies shared by planes and heli­copters.

Mean­while, Park24, the largest car park oper­a­tor in Japan, ini­tial­ly plans to con­vert a park­ing facil­i­ty into a ver­ti­port in the west­ern Kan­sai region, close to Yumeshi­ma, as a tri­al. The com­pa­ny owns around 20,000 park­ing facil­i­ties. It will adhere to guide­lines drawn up in Europe and the U.S., with the aim of even­tu­al­ly expand­ing the busi­ness through­out Japan. The com­pa­ny is to work with UK-based ver­ti­port con­struc­tion com­pa­ny, Sky­ports. It is like­ly more of Park24 facil­i­ties will be trans­formed. This should spur oth­er oper­a­tors to com­pete and get involved.

The Kan­sai space, for exam­ple, will be able to accom­mo­date air­craft of var­i­ous sizes, from small ones that can take one or two pas­sen­gers to those that have a five-per­son capac­i­ty suit­able for longer flights. Euro­pean guide­lines stip­u­late that such bases must be at least twice the size of the air­craft they are cater­ing for in terms of both length and width for safe­ty and reg­u­la­to­ry rea­sons. Gen­er­al­ly, an area of approx­i­mate­ly 3,000 sq. meters is required.

In Japan, ANA Hold­ings and Toy­ota Motor have begun study­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of col­lab­o­rat­ing with emerg­ing U.S. man­u­fac­tur­ers to launch a flight ser­vice in time for the 2025 Expo. Japan Air­lines is also aim­ing to insti­gate a ser­vice in the same year.

The Japan­ese Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Tourism is plan­ning for wide­spread use of eVTOLs by the ear­ly 2030s.

2026: FIFA World Cup, Com­mon­wealth Games, Asian Games

The fol­low­ing year is a gift on a gold­en plat­ter for the eVTOL indus­try, so long as it is pro­gress­ing on a safe and suc­cess­ful path, with three major world events occur­ring dur­ing March, June/July and September/October. The biggest is the FIFA World Cup held between June 8th and July 3rd, where 48 teams from six con­fed­er­a­tions will be play­ing.

What makes this par­tic­u­lar tour­na­ment unique is its scope with 16 host cities involved across three coun­tries. These are the U.S, Cana­da and Mex­i­co. The U.S cities are: Atlanta, Los Ange­les, the Bay Area, Seat­tle, Dal­las, Hous­ton, Kansas City, New York/New Jer­sey, Boston, Philadel­phia and Mia­mi. In Cana­da, Van­cou­ver and Toron­to. And Mex­i­co, Mon­ter­rey, Mex­i­co City and Guadala­jara.

Kudos will remain key to the high­light­ing of eVTOLs. If one city wants them fly­ing spec­ta­tors to match­es, oth­ers will fol­low. The nov­el­ty fac­tor should still be a major sell­ing point, leav­ing aside the speed and ease of trav­el, less road con­ges­tion and the all-impor­tant green stamp of approval.

The splen­dour of rich­es 2026 offers also includes The Com­mon­wealth Games between March 17th and 26th held in the State of Vic­to­ria, Aus­tralia. Host­ing cities are Mel­bourne, Gee­long, Bal­larat, Bendi­go and Gipp­s­land. Along­side the Asian Games between Sep­tem­ber 19th and Octo­ber 4th. Iron­i­cal­ly, Japan is the host nation, just one year after its World Expo. Giv­en all the lessons learned from Osa­ka, air taxis should be fly­ing rou­tine­ly across the skies of the hold­er, the Aichi Pre­fec­ture and its cap­i­tal Nagoya.

Volo­copter’s Strong Pres­ence at Future World Events (pic: Volo­copter)

2027: World Expo

Onward to the next World Expo two years lat­er. Five coun­tries have sub­mit­ted pro­pos­als to hold it. The U.S (State of Min­neso­ta); Thai­land (Phuket); Ser­bia (Bel­grade); Spain (Mala­ga); and Argenti­na (San Car­los de Bar­iloche).

Each has a theme for the Expo which tie in with eVTOLs. For exam­ple. Mala­ga offers: The Urban Era: Towards the Sus­tain­able City and San Car­los de Bar­iloche: Nature + Tech­nol­o­gy = sus­tain­able ener­gy. A viable future for human­i­ty.

The deci­sion on who will be cho­sen as the host coun­try is decid­ed by the Inter­na­tion­al Bureau of Expo­si­tions, an inter­gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tion cre­at­ed to super­vise inter­na­tion­al exhi­bi­tions.

2028: Los Ange­les Olympic Games

Now it comes full cir­cle. By 2028, the eVTOL indus­try should be well and tru­ly up and fly­ing, read­i­ly sup­port­ed and accept­ed by the pub­lic, where air taxis are an inte­gral part of any major world exhi­bi­tion or sport­ing tour­na­ment.

An enthu­si­as­tic Los Ange­les is already plan­ning for the event with its vast inven­to­ry of park­ing lots and high-rise roofs ready for con­ver­sion into ver­ti­ports along with a grow­ing num­ber of U.S eVTOL com­pa­nies, close at hand, includ­ing Archer, Wisk, Joby and Beta Tech­nolo­gies. L.A should become the final seal of approval. After all the chal­lenges faced and the hard­work, at neck­break speed, achieved dur­ing the pre­vi­ous six years, the eVTOL Indus­try has arrived.

Any ini­tial grem­lins are smoothed over; eVTOL shares are soar­ing on the stock mar­ket; with com­pa­ny con­sol­i­da­tion or oth­ers falling by the way­side. The indus­try lead­ers will be all appar­ent as the pub­lic warm­ly embrace this new form of air trav­el.

The band ‘M’ and their late 1970s hit song Pop Muzik, comes to mind.

I wan­na ded­i­cate it, (Pop, pop, shoo wop)
Every­body made it, (Shoo­bie, doo­bie, do wop)
Infil­trate it (Pop, pop, shoo wop)
Acti­vate it,
Paris, ‘Saka, Hous­ton, Phuket, LA,
Every­body talk about air taxis.

(Top pic: vector.com)