Wisk to launch first-of-its-kind transport trial for autonomous eVTOL aircraft in New Zealand, set to begin later this year

Wisk is mak­ing final prepa­ra­tions for its trans­port tri­al in New Zealand, which will help advance autonomous eVTOL pas­sen­ger trans­port under the Government’s broad­er Air­space Inte­gra­tion Tri­al Pro­gramme (AITP).

In Feb­ru­ary 2020, Wisk signed a mem­o­ran­dum of under­stand­ing with the New Zealand Gov­ern­ment to estab­lish the Trans­port Tri­al under the broad­er AITP.

Since then, both par­ties have been under­tak­ing detailed plan­ning of a high­ly struc­tured and inte­grat­ed pro­gramme, with imple­men­ta­tion of the tri­al expect­ed to start in the sec­ond half of 2021. 

Gary Gysin, CEO of Wisk, said: “Wisk has always seen the dis­tinct advan­tages of New Zealand, includ­ing the country’s glob­al­ly respect­ed Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty for Remote­ly Pilot­ed Air­craft Sys­tems (RPAS).

“These fac­tors, com­bined with the advan­tages of test­ing and oper­at­ing in a rel­a­tive­ly uncon­gest­ed air­space and the inno­v­a­tive cul­ture of ear­ly adop­tion, makes New Zealand unique­ly posi­tioned as a leader for autonomous UAM inte­gra­tion tri­als.”

Addi­tion­al­ly, Wisk is bring­ing Insi­tu Pacif­ic into the pro­gramme to sup­port the tri­al. The Boe­ing sub­sidiary deliv­ers unmanned aer­i­al sys­tem (UAS) com­pa­ny to Aus­tralia and the Asia-Pacif­ic region.

Through this part­ner­ship, Wisk will com­bine its lead­er­ship of autonomous flight oper­a­tions and the advanced tech­nol­o­gy and exper­tise of Boe­ing to deliv­er on the pas­sen­ger tri­al objec­tive: to safe­ly eval­u­ate, test, and demon­strate the inte­gra­tion of unmanned air­craft into exist­ing air­space.

“New Zealand presents a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty and we are immense­ly proud to have been rec­og­nized by the New Zealand Gov­ern­ment as the first air­space inte­gra­tion indus­try part­ner,” added Anna Kominik, Asia Pacif­ic Region Direc­tor for Wisk.

“New Zealand’s focus on decar­bon­is­ing its econ­o­my as part of the elec­tric trans­port evo­lu­tion direct­ly aligns with Wisk’s mis­sion to deliv­er safe, every­day flight for every­one through effec­tive, acces­si­ble and sus­tain­able urban air mobil­i­ty solu­tions.”

For more infor­ma­tion on the New Zealand Gov­ern­men­t’s Air­space Inte­gra­tion Tri­als Pro­gramme, click here.