Paid passenger air taxis in Europe are likely to begin in the middle of the decade.
Kyiv. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – May 20, 2021 – Transportation
This was stated by the Executive Director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Patrick Kai.
According to him, given the “good progress made”, the commercial use of such aircraft is likely to begin in 2024-2025.
“We are in the process of certifying some vehicles that will be used for urban air mobility (UAM), and we expect to complete the certification by 2024 … We may be delayed, but the cars themselves, in our opinion, can be certified before that date,” he said. Kai.
Lilium and Volocopter are among the companies seeking to launch their vertical take-off and landing electric aircraft (eVTOL) by this time.
In total, about a dozen projects have applied for EASA certification, including several representing unmanned cargo – so-called delivery drones. At the same time, according to Kay, it will take several more years to seriously talk about unmanned, autonomous transportation of passengers.
It is planned that the pilots of urban air mobility vehicles will first have to have a commercial pilot’s license. Later, after researching how these devices work in urban conditions, a new category of licenses will be developed for them.
To better understand society’s attitude to the new transport, EASA surveyed about 4,000 people earlier this year in six cities: Barcelona, Budapest, Hamburg, Milan, Paris, and the Oresund region on the border between Denmark and Sweden, where part of Copenhagen is located.
More than 80% of respondents have a positive attitude to urban air mobility, 71% are ready to use such services. Respondents’ main concerns were the safety of both the vehicles themselves and their vulnerability to cyberattacks, as well as the impact on the environment and possible noise pollution.
Respondents consider such aircraft to be the most useful in the field of emergency medical care and long-distance flights – provided that they are affordable.
Kai says the agency will use the data to form rules “according to citizens’ perceptions and expectations.”
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Source: Ukrgate