World's first flying taxi airport launches in Singapore

It was only a matter of time before airborne transportation would come to the masses on an everyday basis. Not airplanes, which transport millions of passengers across borders every year, but smaller vehicles for trips within a city.

Just last year, Uber announced the introduction of helicopter rides, first launching in New York City and then expanding to other cities in both the United States and internationally – including Dubai – after that. The company intends to offer this option to daily commuters who travel to and from neighbouring suburbs, which might seem like a far while away considering its hefty cost.

Volocopter, a German flying taxi company, has not built a flying taxi airport — also called a vertiport — in Singapore. The vertiport saw Volocopter’s first test flight lift for a three-minute ride.

Talking about the test flight, Florian Reuter, chief executive officer (CEO) of Volocopter said, “Standing inside the VoloPort makes urban air mobility feel extremely real and demonstrates that air taxi operations are not a faraway future, but very feasible to achieve within the next two to five years."

With the launch of these flying vehicles, a new era of urban mobility will be introduced, as humans are no longer bound to the roads provided for car and motor vehicle transportation. Instead, you can avoid all of that by simply taking a flying taxi, thereby cutting down your travel time and reducing congestion on the roads.

Moreover, the Volocopter, which was built in collaboration with Skyports, will be completely carbon neutral, which is an important feat in an ever-environment-conscious society. This, combined with the fact that the Volocopter can be booked as simply as an Uber or Careem, will certainly appeal to a wide audience that looks to avoid a long commute.

A potential drawback, however, is that the Volocopter will land and depart on certain pads, which are specially designed for the flying taxi. Hence, the taxi will not be able to land everywhere, which might mean that commuters still have to cross some distance to get to their preferred destination.

We at SME10X, however, are very excited about the developments of such an interesting mode of transportation. Of course, the regulation and safety will have to be taken into account, but it looks very promising from a carbon footprint and time-saving perspective.