Volocopter intends to operate 5-10 VoloCity air taxis during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
With the prospect of advanced air mobility turning from concept to reality by middecade, the gathering of industry players at the 2023 Paris Air Mobility event this month will offer stakeholders the opportunity to gauge the ecosystem’s readiness level through panels, high-level meetings and technology demonstrations.
But outside of the echo chamber of advanced air mobility (AAM) startups and industry enthusiasts, public awareness about electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing (eVTOL) vehicles and urban air mobility (UAM) is still nascent, and skepticism abounds about the possibilities—and limitations—of battery-powered aircraft and autonomous passenger flights.
- Volocopter to offer shuttle flights during 2024 Summer Olympics
- Groupe ADP constructing network of five vertiports
- Delays to vehicle certification could complicate plans
Consequently, players across the industry are looking to large-scale televised events and expositions—the earliest being the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris—as an opportunity to engage regulators and capture the imaginations of the general public.
Efforts are underway to ensure that the vehicles, infrastructure and regulations are ready for the spotlight. But with just one year to go, some in the industry are growing concerned about whether the promised services will be fully operational—or require backup measures.
SHUTTLE SERVICES
German startup Volocopter, which is in the process of certifying its piloted, two-seat air taxi, formed a new company in January and applied for an air operator certificate to fly commercial services around the time of the Olympic Games. The company has ordered a fixed-wing aircraft for delivery in June, which will be used “to prove to the regulators that we can safely operate the air shuttle service in Paris,” Volocopter Chief Commercial Officer Christian Bauer says.
Volocopter is planning to operate between five and 10 VoloCity air taxis during the Olympic Games to transport dignitaries, athletes and members of the general public. Each aircraft can take off 2-3 times per hour across five planned vertiport sites.
“The purpose is really to transport as many people as possible,” says Alban Negret, head of innovation and corporate venture at French airport operator Groupe ADP, which is constructing and operating the vertiport network. “We plan to carry up to thousands of passengers during this whole Olympic period,” he says.
Groupe ADP has begun construction of the five vertiports across the northern area of Paris, connected by routes of no more than 20 km (12.4 mi.) each—well within the VoloCity’s 35-km range.
The vertiports will be linked by two primary routes: a business-oriented route connecting Charles de Gaulle Airport with Le Bourget Airport, and then onward to a third vertiport constructed on a pontoon in the Seine River at the Fashion and Design Institute at Gare Austerlitz, and a second, tourism-focused route linking Paris and Versailles via the Paris-Issy-les-Moulineaux heliport and Saint-Cyr-l’Ecole airfield, respectively.
To be sure, the millions of euros of investment that have poured into the vertiport network project are not simply intended to advance air taxi shuttle services during the Paris Olympics. Rather, the longer-term plan is to commercialize and expand on the Paris vertiport network by the end of the decade so that it will remain operational for years to come, serving as one of the world’s first active UAM networks.
“For us, the Paris Olympics will be a major milestone to show electric air taxis for the first time at such a big venue where the whole world is watching,” Bauer says. “We are not doing that only for a snapshot or for marketing. We want to implement a sustainable commercial route there that can later be developed into a commercial network for the future. We will not run a service for only one month; we hope that it will continue forever.”
The organizers of the shuttle services will offer tickets to the general public and premium pre-sale tickets to select businesses and government dignitaries, ensuring that a balanced mix of relevant stakeholders participate in the experience. Exactly how those tickets will be distributed remains to be determined, Bauer says, noting that Volocopter has “a long list of people that want to be the first to ride an eVTOL,” including industry players, government officials and athletes, as well as tourists and private citizens.
Pricing for shuttle rides during the Olympics also has not been decided, although senior Groupe ADP officials have suggested in recent public comments that they are targeting a price of around €110 ($119) for airport shuttle trips to the city center, or roughly twice the price of ground taxi services.
Negret says the future vertiport network ideally should be priced “a bit more expensive than a taxi or Uber” to maximize the value proposition of UAM. Pricing for shuttle rides during the Olympics—expected to be in high demand—will be more expensive, reflecting the “unique” opportunity to be among the first paying customers to ride an electric air taxi, he adds.
TIMELINE STRESS
With one year to go until the Paris Olympics, the timeline to launch real-world UAM services seems fairly aggressive to some industry-watchers. Of the multitude of Western companies developing eVTOL aircraft, only Volocopter plans to have a type-certified vehicle in time for the event, but the company’s early-2024 timeline for certification does not leave much margin for possible delays.
Volocopter, for its part, is sticking to its target. “Our everyday work now is tracking the timeline to Paris,” Bauer says. “We are working hand in hand with [the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)], and we have aligned our timeline with theirs. I cannot say a concrete date, but we are working very efficiently to ensure we can fly commercially before the middle of next year.”
Still, with so much at stake, Volocopter has developed contingency plans. Bauer says the company can still seek special permission from the authorities to fly its vehicles in Paris during the Olympics in the event that certification is delayed.
“There will be no compromise on safety, of course, but we believe the authorities have made Paris a strong priority,” Negret says. “It is also possible we could arrange for some noncertificated aircraft to operate during the Olympics, but the location, objective and scope of those services will be different.”
PONTOISE TESTBED
To prepare for the planned air taxi services, Groupe ADP and its partners—Choose Paris Region, RATP Group and Skyports Infrastructure—have been operating an AAM Sandbox at the Pontoise-Cormeilles Aerodrome since late 2021. The site has featured more than 20 live eVTOL demonstration flights, totaling over 200 km and witnessed by more than 1,000 visitors, according to Groupe ADP.
Among the numerous demonstrations at Pontoise, a major test occurred during the November 2022 inauguration of the site’s vertiport terminal testbed: Volocopter’s 2X uncrewed prototype maneuvered while another aircraft—a Socata TB-20 owned by ENAC, the French national civil aviation school—carried out an approach and landing on the runway.
Other notable tests that year included a March flight noise impact measurement campaign to understand the noise levels of Volocopter aircraft and a September series of airspace integration and deconfliction tests. The latter simulated an urban air transport management system and eVTOL avoidance procedures using a Volocopter air taxi, Pipistrel electric trainer and light drone from M3 Systems.
“We believe that the regulators, both EASA and the French civil aviation authority, have learned a lot through Pontoise to be more confident in the 2024 operation,” says Addison Ferrell, director of Skyports Infrastructure, part of the consortium of partners contributing to the testing efforts.
Built by Groupe ADP and Skyports, the vertiport testbed at Pontoise Aerodrome houses a 115-ft.2 terminal equipped with biometric screening technologies developed by SITA as well as aircraft takeoff-and-landing areas, maintenance hangars and control areas. This has allowed the partner companies to conduct tests for passenger flow, customer acceptance, biometric screening and vehicle integration processes “in an environment that’s as real-life as possible,” Ferrell says.
“For a lean startup, a core part of product development is testing the product early and making changes. But with a big infrastructure project, it’s harder to do—you can’t just build a building, tear it down and then build it again with slight design iterations,” Ferrell says. “So you find ways where you can do testing in as relevant an environment as possible to inform what you ultimately roll out, and that’s what we’re doing with the European testbed.”
The Pontoise Aerodrome also will be open during the Olympic Games, hosting special demonstrations and select showcases of noncertificated eVTOL aircraft, Negret adds.
PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE
The industrial players laying the foundation for the 2024 Paris Olympics air taxi shuttle services agree that a major objective during the event is to introduce eVTOL and UAM technology to the general public, which will be key to gaining widespread acceptance of AAM, hopefully leading to faster adoption and a more agreeable regulatory framework for future operations.
“If we don’t pull this off, I believe it would be a major setback for this industry, because I strongly believe that by making it real during the Olympics—even if it’s a limited operation compared to what we can envision by 2030—that is a way to get people really excited about the possibilities for eVTOL,” Negret says.
At Volocopter, Bauer also identified public acceptance of AAM as a major goal for the demonstrations. “Public acceptance is a major pillar for us, and it’s the reason we are so active with both manned and unmanned flight tests,” he says. “We have seen on customer surveys that when people witness one of our flights, their level of trust goes way up, which we see as a positive not only for Volocopter, but also for the entire industry.”
