Danish Partnership Will Bring eVTOLs to Denmark
A new partnership between HCA Airport in Odense
and Copenhagen Helicopter will be the first in Denmark to build an
infrastructure for electrically powered flying taxis to ferry people between
Denmark’s largest cities. Before the summer holidays, the first flying taxi is
supposed be launched over Funen, and the end-goal is to establish a landing
site on top of Odense Central Station.
A fleet of CO2-neutral flying taxis carrying
passengers between Denmark’s largest cities and other nearby European cities
like Gothenburg, Berlin and Hamburg?
It may sound like pure science fiction, but cities
like Los Angeles, Munich and Seoul are already paving the way for a whole new
layer of green infrastructure called AAM – Advanced Air Mobility.
A new Danish partnership consisting of HCA Airport
in Odense and the company Copenhagen Helicopter ApS is now taking the first
steps towards getting flying taxis – also called eVTOL, electric vertical
take-off and landing aircraft – into Danish airspace. The aim is to bring a
eVTOL prototype to Denmark by summer 2023 and subsequently establish one or
more landing sites, so-called vertipads or vertiports, in Odense – for instance
on the rooftop of Odense Central Station.
A brand new
infrastructure
“I foresee
that in a few years’ time you can take the light rail to Odense Station and
from there take a flying taxi to Copenhagen or other Danish cities. Now is the
time to start building a brand new infrastructure based initially on manned
flying taxis that fly on green power and contribute to the government’s goal of
achieving 100% green domestic transport by 2030,”
says HCA Airport Chairman Kim Kenlev.
“I see
nothing stopping us from flying to cities like Gothenburg, Hamburg or Berlin in
the future. Advanced Air Mobility is high on the agenda everywhere, and these
cities are within reach of these flying taxis,” he adds.
Will attract
foreign operators
Initially, the partnership wants to attract
foreign AAM operators to HCA Airport, which already hosts an internationally
recognised drone test centre, UAS Denmark Test Center. This could be in the
form of testing and demonstration activities or, in the longer term, service
and maintenance.
“Advanced
Air Mobility is based on a new revolution in aviation that says goodbye to
fossil fuels in favour of electrification and biofuels – which we already know
from the transition from traditional cars to hybrid and electric cars and later
self-driving cars. It offers a whole new opportunity to transport people on a
daily basis via the skies, while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing
noise levels and much more,”
says CEO of Copenhagen Helicopter, Martin Andersen.
Copenhagen Helicopter offers transport such as
taxi flights in traditional helicopters, which the company says is a growth
area. According to Andersen, Copenhagen Helicopter’s own calculations, which
are based on international and national reports, indicate that the AAM area has
huge potential and could transport 84,000 passengers a day and remove 120,000
tonnes of CO2 from Danish roads by 2035.
Disrupting
domestic transport
The Municipality of Odense shares the goal for establishing
more sustainable modes of transport and for setting high standards in order to
be the first to develop new technologies:
“This could
well be the beginning of what will be a whole new way of transporting ourselves
and goods in the future. We can see that other countries and cities are already
way ahead, and Denmark and Odense must of course also follow this trend. The
flying taxis of the future can fly on green power produced by Danish offshore
wind turbines, and they can help shift traffic away from the roads,”
says the Mayor of Odense Municipality, Peter
Rahbæk Juel.
He believes the goal of putting Odense at the
forefront of the development is a natural extension of the city’s long-standing
strong position in robotics and drone technology, among other areas:
“Funen’s
robotics adventure began with some talented engineers from the University of
Southern Denmark and a city that dared to think big and take a risk. In the
same way, I see this as the first steps towards a new business venture that will
hopefully generate jobs, contribute to the green transition and create a whole
new way of transporting people,” says Juel.
An area in
huge development
In countries like Korea and Germany, as mentioned
above, the framework for flying taxis to take to the skies – initially with a
pilot on board – is relatively advanced.
In Seoul, for example, the goal is to have regular
drone flights across the mega city as early as 2025, and in Germany an
Airbus-led partnership involving Deutsche Bahn, Munich Airport and Telekom,
among others, is working on making flying taxis between German cities a
reality. A total of €86 million – equivalent to DKK 645 million – has been
earmarked for this project over the next three years.
And in the US, in early 2022 Boeing invested more
than DKK 3 billion in the Silicon Valley company Wisk Aero, which is developing
a self-flying propeller aircraft.
Source: Press Release
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