VoltAero’s Cassio hybrid-electric aircraft to be option for app-based air taxi service

VoltAero has part­nered with Kinec­tAir to devel­op an app-based air taxi ser­vice, which will include its Cas­sio hybrid-elec­tric air­craft.

The smart­phone app will inte­grate direct­ly with Cas­sio’s ‘intel­li­gent cock­pit’ and allows users to order a flight direct­ly from their near­est air­field. Util­is­ing its fleet of leased and frac­tion­al­ly-owned air­craft, KinectAir’s arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence engine then bal­ances sup­ply and demand for air trav­el, giv­ing pas­sen­gers con­trol over their choic­es – both eco­nom­i­cal­ly and envi­ron­men­tal­ly.

Jean Bot­ti, VoltAero’s CEO and Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer, said: “The Kinec­tAir col­lab­o­ra­tion opens excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, com­bin­ing the full ben­e­fit of our Cas­sio aircraft’s low-noise, envi­ron­men­tal­ly-friend­ly flights with an app that offers an acces­si­ble, afford­able, sus­tain­able and safe way to trav­el region­al­ly by air.”

The elec­tric air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er is cur­rent­ly work­ing on its Cas­sio air­craft, which is avail­able in three ver­sions with four to 10 seats.

Fea­tur­ing a sleek, aero­dy­nam­i­cal­ly opti­mised design, Cas­sio will trav­el at speeds of 360km/h and have a flight range of 1,300km.

Deliv­er­ies will begin in late 2022, with the air­craft to be pro­duced on a pur­pose-built final assem­bly line in the Nou­velle Aquitaine region of south­west France. Licensed pro­duc­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties will also be pur­sued in North Amer­i­ca and Asia.

Bot­ti added that ensur­ing region­al air ser­vice is more impor­tant today than ever, espe­cial­ly when eco­nom­i­cal­ly-chal­lenged air­lines around the world are aban­don­ing short­er routes – threat­en­ing air links that serve as vital life­lines to thou­sands of com­mu­ni­ties.

“With Cas­sio air­craft in our fleet, it com­pletes the Kinec­tAir vision for democ­ra­tis­ing per­son­al air mobil­i­ty. Being mind­ful and inten­tion­al about the need for con­nec­tiv­i­ty, and the abil­i­ty to fly sus­tain­ably, is in our com­pa­ny DNA,” said Kinec­tAir’s Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer Jonathan Evans.

“We will be able to offer a clean, qui­et, and intel­li­gent region­al air ser­vice to move peo­ple to where they need to be.”

Evans added that hav­ing a deeply inte­grat­ed part­ner­ship with VoltAero from the start takes full advan­tage of KinectAir’s plat­form in coor­di­nat­ing the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, air­craft main­te­nance, pilot sched­ul­ing and vir­tu­al assis­tance, along with route planning/dispatch and oper­a­tional avail­abil­i­ty.