2023-11-15 20:32:33
The flying taxi has taken a long time to become a reality, but it will be “on the market in 2025,” first in the United States and then in the United Arab Emirates and India, Billy Nolen, director of safety at Archer Aviation, said Wednesday.
“What we considered science fiction has become a reality today,” he told AFP at the Dubai Air Show. “It is happening, it is real and you will see it in the market in 2025.”
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The US Federal Aviation Administration is expected to approve Archer Aviation’s Midnight, a four-passenger electric plane with vertical take-off and landing, in 2025.
This will lead to an “almost simultaneous” certification in the Emirates, according to Nikhil Goel, commercial director of Archer, which counts Mubadala, an Emirati sovereign wealth fund, among its main investors.
Flights in the Emirates are scheduled to begin in 2026. “We expect demand to be strong,” Goel added.
At the same time, flights will begin in New Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore, said the commercial director, who described India as “a very, very important market for us.”
Archer’s Midnight is currently undergoing test flights in California, and rival company Joby made its first experimental flights in New York.
The Midnight has a dozen independently powered propellers to minimize the risk of breakdown, and a wing that allows it to glide if the engine fails. It recharges in six or seven minutes and has a range of 160 kilometers at a speed of 240 km per hour.
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The flights would initially cost between $4 and $5 per passenger per kilometer, before being halved in two or three years, Goel explained, insisting on their “sustainable and environmentally friendly” and silent appearance.
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