Why the best way around traffic may be flying above it

Maybe the Jetsons got it right.

Under the transportation vision Uber outlined this week, flying taxis would fly silently from one airport to another, flying over passengers, reducing the time they spend in traffic, and pilots would eventually become optional.

While the futuristic cartoon imagines a similar scenario for 2062, the company’s aviation partner says 2026 is a more realistic timeline.

Air taxis are planned to be launched in Dubai within a few months, followed by expansion in the US, UK and Japan.

Joby Aviation, the company behind the plane, is working on approvals in the US and the United Arab Emirates and is in talks with Australia’s aviation regulator.

But the announcement may be jarring for those who remember being promised a similar future for Melbourne by 2023.

Experts say that large investments, advances in production and regulatory support will increase the chances of a rise this time.

So is competition from other manufacturers eyeing Australia’s tourism industry.

Uber announced its return to the flying taxi game in Dubai, where it showcased Joby Aviation’s electric vertical take-off and landing machine at its base in the Margham Desert.

The striking aircraft, with “electric air taxi” emblazoned on the sides, has six tiltable propellers for upward and forward flight and four batteries that give it a range of 2,400 km and a top speed of 320 km/h.

There are five leather seats, one for the pilot.

The aircraft is designed to have a 90 percent smaller carbon footprint than a helicopter and produce 100 times less noise.

Uber chief product officer Sachin Kansal says both features make it ideal for urban use because it will create less pollution and disruption than other modes of transportation.

“We truly believe that air taxis can solve many of the problems facing cities on a vertical scale with sustainable and safe transportation,” he told AAP.

“Flying taxis, or air taxis as some call them, used to be in the realm of science fiction, but now they are becoming much more realistic.”

With airports or launch pads located near popular destinations such as airports and tourist attractions, planes will be used along with ground-level transportation to get passengers to their destinations, Mr. Kansal says.

In Dubai, where the service will begin later this year, the companies will install four skyports, including one at the Palm Jumeirah resort and one at the city’s airport, potentially reducing an hour-long journey to 11 minutes.

Innovation aside, Mr Kansal says time savings will be the service’s biggest selling point, given that the average commuter spends 93 hours sitting in traffic each year.

“We spend a lot of time commuting,” he says.

“Maybe it’s time to explore a different mode and a different dimension that might be more vertical in nature.”

Hussein Dia, professor of future urban mobility at Swinburne University, says Australian passengers may be open to the concept if the company can prove its air taxis are green and quiet enough.

“Urban air mobility is a trend because the field is so congested, and many companies have invested in it,” he says.

“There are a lot of companies looking at pilotless versions as well.”

Challenges to its launch will include security concerns, location of airports, noise pollution and even flight prices.

“There may be social equity issues,” says Prof Dia.

“Only a certain number of people can afford it, and some people may say we would be better off building high-speed rail.”

Uber’s announcement is the second time the company has tapped flying taxis as a possibility.

The ride-sharing company created an Uber Elevate division in 2016 to research and develop the idea, and announced three launch cities in 2019, naming Melbourne as its first international base.

The tech giant ultimately re-evaluated its investment during the COVID pandemic and sold the division to Joby Aviation in 2021.

Eric Allison, who runs Uber Elevate, now serves as Joby’s chief product officer, says previous announcements were met with enthusiasm but the industry has seen significant growth since then.

“We definitely had a big vision of what we wanted to do, and we wanted to set aggressive timelines and push people toward that,” he says.

“The entire ecosystem has been shaped over time and there has been a tremendous amount of investment in this area.”

Mr Allison said the flying taxi shown in Dubai was in the final stages of being certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and was going through a parallel certification process with the United Arab Emirates.

Joby also says it is working with Australia’s Civil Aviation and Safety Authority to get the plane certified, which will also be helped by its close relationship with U.S. authorities.

“They want to improve FAA certification, but they want to build a way to quickly verify it in Australia,” Mr Allison says.

“Extra work needs to be done to make this validation work in other markets or under other regulatory umbrellas.”

He says the company will consider the 2032 Brisbane Olympic Games as a potential opportunity, but Australia may have other advantages for flying taxi operators.

In February, Victoria firm Skyportz received a $250,000 grant from the federal government to develop an upgraded “vertipad” for aircraft launches, which the company will match with its own funds.

Local tourism companies have also announced plans to partner with other flying taxi manufacturers such as Eve Air Mobility to take to the skies, including Sydney Seaplanes and Nautilus Aviation in Queensland.

* The reporter went to Dubai as a guest of Uber.