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South-East Queensland could have air taxis by the 2032 Olympics under a new partnership between Wisk and Skyports.
Wisk, a subsidiary of Boeing, has partnered with London-based Skyports to look into the potential for a vertiport network in the SEQ region by the end of the decade, working in collaboration with the SEQ Council of Mayors.
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The two companies will work to analyse travel patterns, identify potential vertiport sites, conduct feasibility studies, and engage with communities to develop a business case for advanced air mobility (AAM) in the region.
“It’s great to see South East Queensland continue to attract innovative technologies and investment,” said Scott Smith, CEO of Council of Mayors (SEQ).
“The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) sector is an exciting new development for South East Queensland and is expected to contribute over $66 billion to the Australian Economy, or 3.1 per cent of national GDP, by 2040.
“We’re excited to see this evolving industry bring high-value local jobs to SEQ and support improved services like medical and tourism. To secure our place as a global destination, we must be at the forefront of adopting emerging technologies.”
The prospective network would use Wisk’s recently-developed sixth-generation electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, which have four seats and will operate autonomously between vertiport sites on pre-planned routes. Wisk is expecting to conduct test flights by the end of the year.
Catherine MacGowan, VP of air operations for Asia-Pacific at Wisk, told Australian Aviation the autonomous systems combine technology both on the aircraft and on the ground.
“The aircraft is designed to fly itself, to fly a prescribed route, and it’s a route that was carefully designed with Airservices or other air navigation service providers,” she said.
“The aircraft will be able to follow those instructions, but also be able to understand the environment around it and respond where necessary, to receive direction from our multi-vehicle supervisor and just see what’s happening around it.
“So, you can think of our autonomous system as having the aircraft, but also the comms links, and then on the ground, we’ll have a multi-vehicle supervisor that is the pilot in command of the aircraft.”
MacGowan is optimistic about expanding into other cities such as Sydney and Melbourne, saying Australia is “a great market” for AAM.
“What we’ve consistently seen is demand signals from across the big cities in Australia,” she said.
“We’ll continue to work with stakeholders, but as you can imagine, once we’ve done our work with CASA and Airservices, that does give us the ability to operate across Australia.”
Companies such as Australian-based firm Skyportz, which is unrelated to Skyports, have also been pushing the cause of AAM in Australia, with Skyportz in April launching an “e-airline” for its future air taxi services.
