Volocopter: “An eVTOL World First in Summer 2024”

From hype to real­i­ty: Volo­copter announced at the Paris Air­show this week, the news that all fol­low­ers of the eVTOL indus­try have been wait­ing for. In con­junc­tion with Groupe ADP and the French Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty and Paris Region (DGAC), “It has been con­firmed” that the launch of the first eVTOL air­craft ser­vices over Paris Region skies for the 2024 Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games is on track.

After one and a half years of Voloc­i­ty tri­als, “Urban Air Mobil­i­ty is com­ing to life over Paris”, reports a press release. It is offi­cial. Paris will be the first Euro­pean city, and per­haps the world, to host eVTOL ser­vices for the gen­er­al pub­lic, in prepa­ra­tion for the Olympic Games.

Even more excit­ing news is… there will be three flight con­nec­tion routes, ini­tial­ly, along­side two tourist round trip flights employ­ing a num­ber of Voloc­i­ty air­craft.

Con­nec­tion Routes

: Paris-Charles de Gaulle air­port <> Paris-Le Bour­get air­port, inte­grat­ing suc­cess­ful­ly into the skies of Europe’s busiest air­port.

: Ver­ti­port of Auster­litz barge <> Paris Heli­port, inte­grat­ing a con­nec­tion over the dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed urban area of Paris.

: Paris Heli­port <> Air­field of Saint-Cyr‑l’École (Ver­sailles); val­i­dat­ing the route poten­tial for tourism use cas­es.

: Tourist round trip flights will be offered from: Paris Heli­port and Paris Le Bour­get.

Voloc­i­ty Fly­ing at the Paris Air­show 2023

Edward Ark­wright, Groupe ADP Deputy CEO, com­ment­ed, “This week’s Paris Air Show will be the turn­ing point in the take-off of new elec­tric air mobil­i­ty — the tran­si­tion from dream to real­i­ty. The chal­lenges ahead are huge, but they are a great source of pride for all those involved in the project, with whom we share the con­vic­tion that car­bon-free air trav­el also brings new ser­vices.”

Dirk Hoke, CEO of Volo­copter, enthused, “We are count­ing down the days to mak­ing elec­tric air taxis a real­i­ty. Togeth­er with our French part­ners, we will take com­mand in decar­bon­is­ing avi­a­tion, slow­ly but sure­ly. Paris Air Show 2023 is the ulti­mate oppor­tu­ni­ty to show thou­sands of peo­ple the ben­e­fits of elec­tric air taxis dai­ly.”

Mean­while, oper­a­tions in Paris are to begin from five ver­ti­ports and will grad­u­al­ly grow to cov­er the whole city region dur­ing the next decade. Voloc­i­ty air­craft, which have capac­i­ty for one pilot and one pas­sen­ger, will be fly­ing at heights below 500 metres and not be audi­ble from ground lev­el in urban envi­ron­ments.

Ver­ti­port Devel­op­ment

Ver­ti­port con­struc­tion is to begin by this Sep­tem­ber and be in full swing at the end of next year. The five Parisian ver­ti­ports have a devel­op­ment sched­ule which allows a com­mer­cial launch in sum­mer 2024. A spe­cial ver­ti­port will be locat­ed on the Auster­litz barge on the Seine riv­er, with strong sup­port from the Paris Region. The release explains, “This month, an envi­ron­men­tal impact study was sub­mit­ted to the Envi­ron­men­tal Author­i­ty, and will be fol­lowed by a pub­lic accep­tance sur­vey in the sec­ond half of 2023. These will form the basis for start­ing con­struc­tion of the ver­ti­port ear­ly next year.”

Each ver­ti­port is to fea­ture pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nals, with 1 to 3 take­off and land­ing spots, based on the knowl­edge gained from the Pon­toise test­bed. More than 1,000 vis­i­tors have come to see dozens of flights and oth­er tri­als that have been car­ried out in Pon­toise over the last 18 months.

Left to right: Damien Cazé, Direc­tor Gen­er­al of Civ­il Avi­a­tion; Dirk Hoke, CEO of Volo­copter; Valérie Précresse, Prési­dente de la Region Ilê-de-France; Edward Awk­wright, Groupe ADP Deputy CEO in front of VoloC­i­ty air­craft at the Paris Air Show 2023

These first routes will increase an under­stand­ing of the UAM mar­ket, allow­ing the pub­lic, part­ners and stake­hold­ers “to famil­iarise them­selves with this new form of mobil­i­ty.”

: The city of Paris, its reg­u­la­tors, and stake­hold­ers can prove the poten­tial for this emis­sion-free-in-flight and qui­et addi­tion to urban mobil­i­ty.

: Volo­copter will receive feed­back from real cus­tomers to con­tin­u­ous­ly improve this first-of-a-kind ser­vice and improve elec­tric air taxi ser­vices for every­one.

: The expe­ri­ence gained from the first com­mer­cial oper­a­tions will shape how UAM is to evolve over decades to come.

Volo­copter is also col­lab­o­rat­ing with air res­cue oper­a­tor, ADAC Luftret­tung, to help save lives by deploy­ing eVTOLs in emer­gency med­ical ser­vices.

The ADAC Luftret­tung fea­si­bil­i­ty study show­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ties for rapid emer­gency care using eVTOLs have also been met with great inter­est by the Assis­tance Publique – Hôpi­taux de Paris, who have joined forces with Groupe ADP to explore the deploy­ment of ADAC Luftrettung’s con­cept for mul­ti­copter oper­a­tions in EMS in the Paris region as well.

Volocopter’s air­craft are four times qui­eter than heli­copters while in flight. The gen­er­al pub­lic will be able to book flights for the sum­mer of 2024. Sub­scribers to the Volo­copter chan­nels will be the first to learn about book­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, which will be revealed in the sec­ond half of this year.

Learn more here

https://www.volocopter.com/pas2023/

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.volocopter.com

(Images: Volo­copter)