Volocopter wants to fly tourists over Singapore in the year after next. To this end, the Southeast Asian city-state is planning its own corridor around the financial district and the inner-city bay where the world-famous rooftop pool on the Marina Bay Sands is located. Also in 2024, Paris – for the Olympic Games – and Rome want to allow the first taxi flights with electric helicopters. Volocopter is wooing Singapore’s authorities by estimating that unmanned aerial services should bring the city around 1,300 jobs and a good 4 billion Singapore dollars in 2030.
At the beginning of 2024, the Germans want to serve a flight route of around twelve kilometers in length via Singapore. In the next few months, Volocopter wants to hire the first pilots and engineers, said commercial director Christian Bauer in Singapore. The battery-powered two-seater that Volocopter is presenting in Singapore has a range of 35 kilometers and a top speed of 90 kilometers per hour.
During its sightseeing flights, it is said to reach a height of up to 150 meters. For the flight time of about 15 minutes, an estimated price of more than 500 euros would be due, state media calculated based on Bauer’s statements. Bauer previously spoke of “40 percent” of a helicopter flight. In five to six years it should correspond to a fee for a “premium taxi” – which would be around 60 euros.
Flights during the Summer Olympics
Singapore doesn’t have a traffic problem, but it does have an interest in technology. It is also positioning itself as a metropolis of the future. “It’s about more than a solution for road traffic. Singapore has what it takes to test, learn and scale up the adoption of this form of mobility and then export it around the world,” say Oliver Wyman consultants. A taxi service is planned for Paris and Rome from 2024. In Paris, for example, Volocopter wants to transport guests during the Summer Olympics.
However, the offer there will be significantly more expensive than a normal taxi ride: there too, only one passenger will be able to fly in addition to the pilot. The company from Bruchsal, which will be managed by former Airbus manager Dirk Hoke from September, wants to present itself in Asia and Europe and gain experience with customers before the air taxis can and are allowed to fly autonomously at some point, said a spokeswoman. The 18 electric motors of the “Volocity” are powered by nine batteries in the rear of the helicopter. Its certification by the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the European aviation safety authority, is still pending.
In Singapore, Volocopter is banking on the recovery of tourism after the years of the pandemic. In good years, the city-state with its almost six million inhabitants welcomed around 20 million guests. A second tourist route is planned around the leisure island of Sentosa. In the long term, cross-border traffic between the neighboring countries of Indonesia and Malaysia and Singapore is planned, for which there are currently enormous connection problems – but the flight times would have to be longer for this.
At the same time, the Germans are talking about building four to six “vertiports” in Singapore and Asia: that’s what they call the take-off and landing sites for the Volocopter. One could be in Seletar, an airport used by the former British colonial rulers. Today it serves the private jets of the super-rich. There, Skyports and Volocopter signed contracts for a vertiport.
