ROME (Reuters) – Passengers flying into Rome from 2024 onwards will have the ability to go airborne for his or her taxi experience into town centre too, if a challenge between the corporate working its major airport and a German startup lifts off on schedule.
Startup Volocopter hopes to make Fiumicino Airport a pioneer website for the rotor-bladed, battery-powered two-seater air taxi it’s creating.
Aeroporti di Roma (AdR) CEO Marco Troncone mentioned the journey in one of many craft, which takes off and lands vertically, will take round quarter-hour, in contrast with 45 minutes or extra by automotive.
The preliminary value of a experience will likely be round 150 euros ($175), a worth prone to drop because the service goes mainstream, he mentioned.
“The connection will likely be very swift,” he instructed Reuters at Fiumicino, the place Volocopter was showcasing a prototype. “Will probably be a silent journey and … the extent of emissions will likely be zero.”
Volocopter, based in 2011, hopes to get a business air licence from the European Aviation Security Company (EASA) inside three years after which begin operations, its Chief Industrial Officer Christian Bauer mentioned.
Rome is seen because the third most fitted European metropolis behind Paris – the place Volocopter mentioned in June it hoped to have a service in operation in time for the Olympic Video games – and Berlin for the event of air taxis, an EASA examine confirmed.
($1 = 0.8593 euros)
(Reporting by Francesco Zecchini; modifying by Agnieszka Flak and John Stonestreet)
