Move over Uber and taxis.
Enaire, Spain’s air navigation authority, has announced plans to start demonstrating flying taxis in Spain. The vehicles are expected to be released in Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela in 2022.
“We need to move urban mobility into the third dimension: airspace. And we need to do it as efficiently and sustainably as we can,” said Ángel Luis Arias, the authority’s director-general.
Arias said the authority is working on multiple projects across Europe that uses taxis and other flying vehicles to move people around urban and semi-urban areas, including drones.
“Enaire, in its capacity as a public company of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, is willing to fulfill its duties to attract and help any private sector companies or public organizations that are interested in allowing Spain to position itself at the forefront of the development and operation of this new sector,” he added.
Enaire is getting help from the European Union’s biggest research and innovation program to demonstrate how air taxis could benefit the continent. If Spain’s pilot program is successful, air taxis could change transportation as we know it across the region.
And while the demonstrations are anticipated for 2022 in open spaces in the cities, it remains unclear if the test will include people or test dummies to fly the taxis.