How many times have you been stuck in traffic and wished you could somehow be lifted up and transported to your destination in a matter of minutes rather than spending hours on the freeway?
The good news is that something potentially game‐changing is approaching along these lines. Driven by fast‐growing interest from startups, aerospace companies and venture capital, electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft are set to significantly disrupt urban mobility over the next few years.
Put simply, eVTOL offers the promise of urban air mobility (UAM) at scale. In the near future, fleets of these small, fast, quiet, sustainable, low‐emission aircraft will act as "air taxis," able to get passengers and goods from A to B, across cities and other high‐density areas, bypassing road traffic with travel times that will seem unimaginable to today’s commuters.
Thanks to rapid advances in UAM technology, plus a growing ecosystem of manufacturers, operators and infrastructure providers, it’s likely that eVTOL will be a viable proposition at scale within the decade. And that will transform urban transport - and traffic congestion - for the better, as well as create a new multi‐trillion‐dollar market for UAM operators and suppliers.
How should travel companies prepare for UAM?
UAM has implications all across the travel industry. Airlines, for example, may decide to operate air taxi services themselves, or do so in partnership with emerging operators. UAM support services could also represent a new revenue stream for airlines - think maintenance services, crew and pilot training, flight operations, airspace management and so on.
Airlines will need to think carefully whether they ultimately want to compete in this space, partner with new players or take action to protect their existing short‐haul revenues from eVTOL competitors.
Scott Davidson
In particular, air taxis could allow airlines to ferry passengers between urban locations and airports much faster than is currently possible by road or rail. That has the potential to radically improve the end‐to‐end customer experience. It could also enhance the overall sustainability of passenger journeys, at least for the pre‐ and post‐flight stage. That’s an important consideration for airlines in need of ways to enhance their green credentials, when transforming the sustainability of the core flight may take significantly more time.
Longer term, however, it’s less clear whether UAM will complement airline revenues or threaten them. As the technology improves, the range that eVTOLs can operate over will get longer. And longer ranges will start to bring UAM operators into direct competition with airlines. An air taxi service that can take passengers between cities, not just within them, is a very different proposition. Airlines must plan accordingly.
Imagine, for example, hopping on an eVTOL in New York City and being able to reach Washington, D.C., or Boston in 90 minutes. Compare that with the experience of trailing out to the airport, going through security, catching a domestic flight and then getting into the destination city by road or rail, and it’s not hard to see how UAM could ultimately "steal" airline passengers on these short shuttle‐type routes.
So airlines will need to think carefully whether they ultimately want to compete in this space, partner with new players or take action to protect their existing short‐haul revenues from eVTOL competitors.
Compete, complement or completely ignore?
But what about other parts of the travel industry? Hotels, for example, may be tempted to think UAM has little to do with them. In fact, they could play a significant role. Take UAM infrastructure. For UAM to operate at scale, a large network of "vertiports" for landing, loading, recharging and take‐off will be needed - all of them in easy‐to‐access urban locations.
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With a large real estate footprint, including many prime city‐center sites, hotels could be ideal locations for these UAM vertiports, whether on rooftops, in parking lots or on other parts of the estate. For UAM operators, that’s a potentially compelling proposition, enabling them to spin up the necessary infrastructure much faster. And for hotel operators, it’s a new revenue stream and a way to increase foot traffic, create upselling opportunities (think vertiport food and beverage and other services) and offer fast, direct transfers from airports to increase the desirability of individual hotels.
Air taxis also create new opportunities and/or challenges elsewhere in travel. Cruise operators, for instance, could use eVTOLs to get passengers on and offboard far faster with a significantly better customer experience - increasing revenues from premium‐paying customers. Car rental companies, on the other hand, face a key decision about whether to compete with UAM operators for an overlapping customer base, or pivot to serving the industry (in areas like maintenance or vertiport management).
What’s your flight plan for UAM?
The point is not that every travel company needs a fully fledged UAM strategy right now. There are still many open questions about how the technology and the ecosystem will develop - and when.
However, the disruptive potential of UAM is such that no travel company can afford to wait before thinking through the implications. As a first step, that should include quantifying the potential impact on revenues and profitability, and, where appropriate, engaging partners and developing a proposition that can be taken to market when the time comes.
Ultimately, everything points to the fact that it’s a question of when, not if, UAM will take off. Travel companies need to be fully onboard with the risks and opportunities before that happens.