The Air Taxi Readiness Index (ATRI), now in its fourth iteration, is a tool to help measure the level of preparedness for the upcoming generation of passenger- and cargo-carrying Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles in 60 selected territories.
Chris Brown, head of our Strategy team, assesses the preparedness of these selected territories in the race for vertical take-off and landing air mobility.
After several years of breathless hype surrounding the predicted new age of aerial mobility, the coming few years will test operators’ abilities to successfully convert concept to reality and commercialise their early propositions. The struggle is on to gain mission-critical regulatory approvals and to deploy assets into early use cases.
Players in the next-gen aerial mobility space have moved beyond the peak of the hype cycle to face the long grind of building viable businesses. Inevitably, not all will succeed; the past twelve months have seen a number of prominent names forced to raise additional cash, while signature events such as Volocopter’s publicised plans for air taxis over Paris during the Olympics have not materialised as planned and have even faced significant hostility.
This year, we have witnessed a sectoral shift of focus to the Gulf as operators rush to deploy aircraft to satisfy real-world use cases, and where the funding landscape and end consumer affluence allows. Specifically, the UAE and Saudi Arabia have made significant progress over the past 12 months.
Whilst the air taxi vision remains as exciting as ever, we think it always pays to scrutinise the hype. There’s still a long way to go before we see on-demand air taxis as a mainstream mobility option. AAM will need to evolve through multiple use cases, including scheduled regional connectivity, helicopter displacement, and cargo transport, before it reaches the maturity across all readiness metrics required for mass deployment.
Would you like to prepare your business for advanced air mobility? We can help. Contact Chris Brown of our Strategy team to explore how you can lay the groundwork and take advantage of these new technologies. We'd be delighted to hear from you.
