Airbus Embraces Flying Taxis

Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury said the company is “very serious” about developing flying taxis.

Faury noted that the human population is projected to increasingly concentrate in urban areas. It will grow from the current 50 percent to 60 percent by 2030 and 70 percent by 2050. The European airplane maker sees this as a business opportunity, especially the use of decarbonized (electric) technologies.

Urban air mobility means flight over densely populated areas, so two areas demand the company’s focus, air pollution and safety.

The advantage for Airbus in developing battery technologies to propel its flying taxis is the ability to use that knowledge to develop larger aircraft using electric propulsion.

Speaking to Arabian Business, Faury said, “It’s a way to prepare the decarbonized technologies of large planes on a smaller scale and much faster and with less money.

“A battery is 200 to 500 watt hours per kilogram, it doesn’t work for us unless you’re going very short distances for urban mobility,” he says. That makes flying taxis an ideal application for electric power.