The Guardian

Brazilian airline strikes deal to launch São Paulo flying taxi fleet

Tom Phillips

The skies over Latin America’s largest city are set to witness a futuristic aerospace revolution after the Brazilian budget airline Gol struck a deal that could see it ferry commuters around São Paulo in hundreds of lowcost zero-emission electric air taxis.

“It’s going to be an absolute disrupter. We’re going to democratise air travel,” Dómhnal Slattery, chief executive of the group that will provide the aircraft to Gol, claimed in an interview with the Financial Times.

Slattery, from the Dublin-based firm Avolon, which recently placed an order for 500 of the aircraft from their British manufacturer, Vertical Aerospace, admitted helicopters were the “domain of the ultra wealthy”. Nowhere is that more true than in Brazil’s economic capital, where South America’s super-rich hop between luxury beach properties, ranches and heavily guarded compounds.

But the Avolon boss claimed the introduction of VA-X4 eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft to São Paulo would be a gamechanger for commuters once the taxis, which look like a cross between a helicopter and a glider, were delivered in late 2024 or 2025.

“Our basic estimate at the moment is that the operating cost here for this aircraft will be the equivalent of $1 per passenger over a 25-mile trip,” Slattery told the FT.

Few cities are crying out for such a revolution more than São Paulo, a sprawling, car-choked metropolis with more than 12 million inhabitants and 8.6m vehicles.

Bristol-based Vertical Aerospace was founded in 2016 and promises to pioneer “a new era in vertical transport”. Its website claims: “In heavily populated regions, neither cars nor public transport can cope with demand. The VA-X4 will transform the way people travel.”

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2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-09-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://guardian.pressreader.com/article/282153589421777

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