Officials in France are getting ready to provide flying taxi services to tourists visiting the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Should the taxis truly be put into service in the French capital, this might be the first significant real-world example of the flying technology. A few developers of air taxis were present at the recent Paris Air Show to showcase their goods and look for support from the industry. Germany’s Volocopter, which intends to provide a flying taxi service during the Olympics, was one of the companies present.
However, no air taxi manufacturer has been given the go-ahead to start operations in France as of yet. Volocopter wants to lead the way. However, the business still needs to submit thousands of pages of documentation to the European Aviation Safety Agency and put its aircraft through rigorous weather testing. CEO Dirk Hoke acknowledged to the news agency Reuters that getting the clearance won’t be simple. “Being the first is not an easy feat to accomplish,” he remarked. Next month, Volocopter intends to test its electric air taxis in various German locations. According to Hoke, concerns regarding government permissions have not been the only issues facing the air taxi industry; there have also been issues related to global economic slowdowns.
Robin Riedel is a co-leader of McKinsey’s Center for Future Mobility, a business advising firm. According to him, Reuters, businesses established to finance air taxi initiatives have seen a 30% decrease in value in the last several years. Furthermore, a lot of investors have chosen to fund drones rather than flying taxis. Experts in the field express concern that these difficulties may portend more financial difficulties for numerous other businesses engaged in the development of air taxis. The French President, Emmanuel Macron, is the person that Hoke, a former senior executive at Airbus, has considered as the first user of his flying taxis.
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