A group of airports in Italy and France are banding together to create electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) veliport infrastructure to speed the deployment of quicker, carbon-free air taxi transportation between their respective city centers and passenger terminals.
Operators of airports in Rome, Venice, Bologna, and Nice announced the creation of the jointly owned Urban Blue company. It will oversee construction and management of veliports for eVTOL air taxi services to shuttle voyagers between airline transport platforms and the cities they serve. The scheme will be developed with German urban air mobility (UAM) company Volocopter, and will remain open to new industrial, technology, and financial partners wanting to participate in expanding the program across Italy, France, and countries beyond.
The plan is to initiate eVTOL shuttle services between veliports around the city centers of Rome, Venice, and Nice and their airports by 2024 – the same year Paris…
