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More than 80% of Europeans surveyed are positive about urban air mobility, a transport system that moves people by air.
Paid passenger transportation by electric air taxi in Europe is likely to begin by the middle of the decade.
This was stated by the executive director of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) Patrick Kai, writes Flightglobal informes.
According to him, taking into account «established good progress», the commercial use of such aircraft is likely to begin in 2024-2025.
«We are in the process of certifying some vehicles that will be used for urban air mobility (UAM), and we expect to complete the certification by 2024 ... We may be delayed, but the crafts themselves, in our opinion, can be certified by that date»,- Kai said.
Lilium and Volocopter are among the companies seeking to launch their vertical take-off and landing electric aircraft (eVTOL) by this time.
Only about a dozen projects have applied for EASA certification, including several representing unmanned cargo transportation - the so-called delivery drones. At the same time, according to Kai, it will take several more years to seriously talk about unmanned, autonomous transportation of passengers.
It is planned that initially pilots of urban airmobility vehicles will be required to hold a commercial pilot's license. Then, having studied how these devices behave in urban conditions, a new category of licenses will be developed for them.
In order to better understand the attitude of society towards new transport, EASA at the beginning of this year surveyed about 4 thousand people in six cities: Barcelona, Budapest, Hamburg, Milan, Paris and the Eresund region on the border of Denmark and Sweden, where part of Copenhagen is located.
More than 80% of respondents have a positive attitude towards urban airmobility, 71% are ready to use such services. The main concerns of the respondents were related to the safety - both of the vehicles themselves and their vulnerability to cyberattacks, as well as the impact on the environment and possible noise pollution.
Also, respondents consider such aircraft to be the most useful in the field of emergency medical care and intercity flights - provided that they were at an affordable price.
Kai says the agency will use the findings to shape rules «in line with citizens' perceptions and expectations».
Source: UNIAN