Building A Highway Out Of Thin Air – A Realistic Look Into eVTOL Operations

By Marc Sellouk, Founder and CEO of Flewber

I believe that we currently stand at the precipice of 2 revolutions in aviation that are too often conjoined as a singular vision. The first, where terms such as Urban, Regional and Advanced Air Mobility are used as the catalytic precursors for a paradigm shift in the on-demand nature of how we will travel by air. At the center of each of these air mobility phrases is the futuristic promise of an aerial transportation network made possible by the second revolution, an array of quietly humming, sometimes autonomous, eVTOL aircraft. 

We’re sold countless visions of happy families and morning commuters alike, lifting off from city rooftops and traveling above the noise and congestion to their destinations. A true transformative change to the urban and underserved communities, within a landscape of our society and our travel lifestyle. As I said, we stand at the precipice of 2 revolutions in aviation. But as both a pilot and owner of an aviation technology company and airline, I’m trained to look beyond the headlines and promise of change to dissect the vision and delve more deeply into the operational and corporate necessities required to evoke such change, particularly where it pertains to a novel aircraft such as eVTOL.

For the purposes of expediency, let’s set aside the infrastructure requirements of eVTOL aircraft and not consider the aerial traffic jams over cities like New York and Los Angeles, while hundreds of eVTOL aircraft wait to land at vertiports that can accommodate less than a dozen of these modern miracles of aviation at one time, and rather, focus on the airspace itself. 

Our national airspace is an intricate and well-controlled three dimensional highway that at any given point in a day can have from 8,000 to as many as 20,000+ aircraft traversing it, each stacked at a different altitude. The introduction of eVTOL into this airspace, especially urban airspace, will come with a unique set of challenges and require advanced airspace flight technologies such as detection and avoidance capabilities and assured geofencing. NASA is currently heading an AAM (Advanced Air Mobility) working group that is focusing on items like these and overall future airspace design as they literally build a new highway out of thin air to accommodate everything from recreational drones to supersonic aircraft. This will be no small task, and neither will be unified international norms, as safety takes time.

From an airline owner’s perspective, I also have to wonder if operators will have a difficult time securing affordable insurance to operate eVTOL aircraft? Will some designs be more expensive to insure than others, such as the multirotor designs like EHang’s EH216, fixed-wing lift-plus-cruise models like Archer Aviation’s Midnight aircraft, and single-rotor helicopter-style eVTOL aircraft like Jaunt Air Mobility’s Jaunt Journey? How will underwriters evaluate and price the risks associated with this new class of unproven aircraft? What data will insurance companies need to collect to properly evaluate eVTOLs? How will the cost of insurance factor into how much passengers pay for an air taxi ride or regional flight? This too will take time and evaluation.

Regardless of the points that I’ve raised, eVTOL manufacturers are creating marvels of flight right before our very eyes and are bringing to market aircraft that will be the wave of the future. We’re living in an exciting time for air travel, as both how we fly and what we fly in are going to undergo transformative change for the better, but one may take more time than the other. This is why I’ve separated the conjoined visions as I believe that the air mobility revolution can and should be able to happen independently of that of the eVTOL which may just need a bit more time to be done right.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.