Mexico, pioneer in urban air mobility

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Airbus operates a service similar to Uber in the capital of the country, but with electric helicopters that go from the AICM to the Toluca airport.

A trip in Uber from the International Airport of Mexico City to the Toluca terminal can take an hour and a half, but Airbus wants to go further and “democratize” the air taxis so that this journey can be made in half an hour, said Ricardo Capilla, general director of Airbus Mexico in an interview with El Sol de México.

Image result for Airbus through Voom

The aircraft manufacturer wants to dominate the Mexican skies with air taxis, through the app, Voom, which last year transported a thousand people in electric helicopters.

“Last year we flew about 1,000 passengers. This year we intend to fly four thousand passengers. The service is requested by application, as if you were making a taxi on demand. You have your application, you check where the air taxi is and the time it is needed, “explained Ricardo Capilla.

This pilot program is only available in two cities in the world: Sao Paulo, in Brazil, and the Mexican capital.

Image result for Airbus through Voom

“We have many cities in the world that are overcrowded and have many urban problems. So, we are seeing how urban air mobility can be democratized rather than saying that it can be more accessible for many people and basically doing air taxis, “said Ricardo Capilla.

“Voom is doing a market study and it is transporting passengers and we are seeing what the behavior of its passengers is, what are the needs, the routes, the prices to be able to feed the future of mobility”.

The objective for the company is to democratize this type of mobility, which is currently available at a price of two thousand 500 pesos per flight, although as demand increases and the costs of the aircraft they use are reduced, this type is “democratized” of transportation in the next 20 years.

“It’s still going to be a niche, but it’s going to be interesting and we’ll have to see in a couple of decades how much we can democratize it.

You have to dream, because we’ve seen it in science fiction movies. “We are not talking surely, in the next 10 years, to make it accessible to the entire population, but to a population much more important than we have today,” said Ricardo Capilla.

Image result for Airbus through Voom

To transport Mexican passengers, Airbus prepares two prototypes of helicopters: the CityAirbus and the Bahana, which work with electric batteries, which reduces operating and equipment costs.

“They will be vehicles that will have lower costs of acquisition, operation, which will also be very friendly to the environment and that will solve many of the problems of congestion that we have in large cities,” the executive added. .

Currently, the route offered by Airbus through Voom has specific stops between the capital air terminal and the Toluca airport, since it descends on helipads of Lomas de Chapultepec, Interlomas and Santa Fe, said the general director of Airbus Mexico.

The use of the app is very similar to that of platforms such as Uber, Lyft or DiDi, since the user only needs to enter their credit card information in order to use the service.

Source: El Sol de Mexico

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