Airbus will test its new "Sky taxi" later this year

By Matthew Griffin Future Transport 20th January 2017

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

With more people moving into the cities gridlock is becoming the bane of most people’s lives, Airbus and others, including Uber propose taking to the skies but people with vertigo should watch out.

Airbus has been eyeing the increasingly interesting, and viable, flying taxi space for some time now – ever since it ran an experimental air taxi business with Uber for the Sundance Festival in 2016. Then, when Uber announced last October that they wanted to begin operating their own commercial sky taxi business in 2021 Airbus were there again as a potential partner. Now, according to the company’s CEO, it looks like the company’s ready to push the envelope and start testing it’s latest flying taxi concept dubbed “Vahana” later this year.

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Vahana, which Airbus call a “Personal Flight Vehicle,” is basically Airbus’ answers to roads and traffic jams and the company argues that rather than spending billions of dollars on pouring new concrete for roads and motorways, then watching traffic sit idle on them is a waste of both time and money. And to give their argument credence they offer up Sao Paulo in Brazil as a case in point where in 2014 the traffic jams were so bad they stretched 344 km. So they have a point – and why sit in a traffic jam when you can zoom around the skies instead?

“One hundred years ago, urban transport went underground, now we have the technological wherewithal to go above ground,” said Airbus’s CEO Tom Enders at a tech conference in Munich yesterday, adding that while this was an experiment, the company is taking it “very seriously.”

Airlines are apparently losing their appetite for expensive aircraft so instead Airbus appears to be branching out and turning its attention – and its vast R&D skills – to smaller scale urban transport instead where it will inevitably have to compete with other new market entrants including EHang, a Chinese competitor who recently successfully tested their own sky taxi – and who are also partnering with Uber.

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Vahana, which Enders proposes will be hailed using an Uber style app, will have multiple propellers, take off vertically and seat a single passenger, although the final models will accommodate more people more, and while the space is still emerging regulators such as the US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) are slowly warming to the idea, so watch this airspace – er, I mean space.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.