{"id":16047,"date":"2025-10-22T18:53:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T18:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/16047\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T18:53:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T18:53:24","slug":"florida-preparing-sites-for-air-taxis-wdbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/16047\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida preparing sites for air taxis \u2013 WDBO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The state of Florida says it\u2019s ready for eVTOLs. Gov. Ron DeSantis says construction is underway on two vertiports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">Orlando International Airport is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/news\/florida\/orlando-international-airport-is-preparing-evtols-offering-futuristic-mode-travel\/J5XUVAI7TBFPHGV5QL2Z2JG4KE\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/news\/florida\/orlando-international-airport-is-preparing-evtols-offering-futuristic-mode-travel\/J5XUVAI7TBFPHGV5QL2Z2JG4KE\/\">getting ready<\/a> for this advanced air mobility technology. An eVTOL is basically an air taxi, going up like a helicopter and taking people short distances. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">Greater Orlando Aviation Authority Senior Vice President Brad Friel described them as \u201ckind of like Uber and Lyft in our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">Airport leaders have identified two sites where the eVTOLs could take off from at the train station and east airfield.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">\u201cThroughout the community, it\u2019s going to have to create a network of these vertiports over time, and just because they could take off the land of the airport, they have to go somewhere,\u201d Friel said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">And the state of Florida is working on that. DeSantis said, \u201cThe idea would be if they can do this to scale, if they can make it economical, it would take some traffic off the roads.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">The governor said the state is building two vertiports at the Florida Department of Transportation\u2019s SunTrax testing facility in Polk County.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">DeSantis said the state will establish the nation\u2019s first advanced air mobility aerial test bed and dedicated airspace there. They will also work expand the reach and create a statewide network of interconnected commercial vertiports.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">Delta is partnering with Joby Aviation, one of the leading advanced air mobility companies, to get these air taxis off the ground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">Delta is advertising that you skip the traffic with an electric air taxi.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\">The initial launch for Delta and the Joby air taxis will be in New York and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/mobile-apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/mobile-apps\">Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/video\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wftv.com\/video\/\">click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wftvapps.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1761159204_592_APP DOWNLOAD LOCAL_1541693885678.jpg_13622062_ver1.0.jpg\" width=\"100%\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 kzYdlV body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92025 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014 The state of Florida says it\u2019s ready for eVTOLs. Gov. Ron DeSantis says construction is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1059,2777,13723,13724,13722,28,6281,13717,13725,2890,1301,7850,634,13719,13726,115,139,141,140,13720,1873,13718,13721,6312,1045],"class_list":["post-16047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-alexa_lorenzo","tag-channel_nine","tag-de_santa","tag-delta","tag-f_suntrack","tag-florida","tag-governor","tag-jetsons","tag-joby","tag-joy","tag-kirsten_delgado","tag-la","tag-local","tag-lyft","tag-new_york","tag-news","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando_international_airport","tag-polk_county","tag-ron_de_santas","tag-ron_desantis","tag-uber","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}