New Report: The Present and Future of Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

Issue #26 of Sustainability in the Air Newsletter

Look at the image below from a video released by Supernal, Hyundai’s urban air mobility company.

The well-produced, easy-to-understand and funny video shows people in a North American city stuck in traffic, waiting for the bus, and on their way home from school being told that one day soon all this will be a thing of the past.

The cartoon series ‘The Jetsons’ comes to mind, where the characters fly around in a flying car.

In fact, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard the Jetsons being invoked in eVTOL media coverage.

Actually, the original Jetsons show creators imagined George Jetson to be born on 31 July 2022, something which sent Twitter into a frenzy. And perhaps when ”George” is 40 in 2062 there will indeed be so-called flying cars taking his kids to school.

But in the first decade (2025-2035) of urban air mobility, eVTOLs are unlikely to replace Uber or the school bus for a range of reasons from pilot training (most eVTOL companies are starting with piloted models), to the fact that routes will be quite tightly defined, especially in urban areas.

Having said that we do see use cases for eVTOLs.

These encompass some of the things currently done by private jets, charter helicopters, and cargo drones.

Think airport transfers for premium passengers, charters for company CEOs, and transport for sports stars and celebrities. Kardashians instead of Jetsons.

The SimpliFlying UAM Powerlist

While 200+ urban air mobility companies have received VC funding, the number who will make it through to commercial flights will be in single figures.

As (Boeing backed) Wisk CEO Gary Gysin noted at the Farnborough Air Show, bringing a new aircraft like this to market requires $2 billion.

We’ve put together a report looking at the first decade of the UAM space. How are we likely to see eVTOLs being used, and in what capacity?

Out of the hundreds of companies, which do we think will make it through with commercial passenger-ready aircraft this decade?

We’ve chosen eight, which we call our UAM power list. They are:

• Archer Aviation

• BETA Technologies

• Eve Air Mobility

• Joby Aviation

• Supernal

• Vertical Aerospace

• Volocopter

• Wisk

Read more about them, why we chose them, and our predictions by downloading the report for free on our sustainability hub.

Collaboration news

Lufthansa and Shell sign agreement for the supply of sustainable aviation fuel (Travel Tomorrow)

Sustainability news

• Lufthansa Group to pilot ‘green fare’ in Scandinavian markets (BTN Europe)

• Co2mission: Turkish Airlines Launches Its Carbon Offsetting Scheme (Simple Flying)

• Boeing to Open Japan Research Center and Expand Sustainability Partnerships (ARGS)

• ANA outlines plans to achieve net-zero C02 emissions by 2050 (Flight Global)

• Low-emission planes adding to sustainability push in Chilean transport (bn Americas)

• Smart software helps cut air cargo emissions (Air Cargo News)

• Neste and Avfuel supply SAF to Viva Aerobus (Hydrocarbon Engineering)