People who like to leave for the airport with just enough time will relate: You catch a cab to make your flight, and then you hit traffic. Both the meter and your anxiety level start to tick up, and you wish there was a way to just fly above it all. <\/p>\n
Well, one company is trying to show what that could be like. Starting this week, Joby Aviation is flying demonstration flights<\/a> of its electric air taxis in New York City. The vehicles will go between Manhattan and JFK airport in Queens, as part of a new federal pilot program<\/a> meant to help air taxis become a regular sight in U.S. skies.<\/p>\n If a small plane and a helicopter had a baby, that\u2019s kind of what these air taxis look like.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has a wing, but it has six propellers that can tilt, and they can tilt from pointing up to take off vertically to pointing forward to fly like an airplane,\u201d said Eric Allison, chief product officer at Joby Aviation.<\/p>\n That vertical lift lets the vehicles move nimbly around cities. They\u2019re also much quieter than helicopters, he said: \u201cIt’s basically inaudible as it flies overhead.\u201d<\/p>\n Allison said the company is working hard to get its aircraft certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. The demonstration flights this week act as kind of a preview of what hailing a ride on one of these aircraft could look like.<\/p>\n \u201cSo you get a car to wherever the nearest takeoff and landing spot is, or if you’re right across the street, you can walk. You get pooled into the Joby aircraft with other people,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then, and then you can fly up to 200 miles-an-hour to your final destination.\u201d<\/p>\n One key question is how much this ride to the airport \u2014 or wherever \u2014 will ultimately cost. Allison said the goal is to be on par with a premium car service.<\/p>\n The air taxi business does face some real hurdles, according to Samuel Engel with the consulting firm ICF. <\/p>\n There are only so many places you can land an aircraft in a city, even a small nimble one. And those aircraft are small \u2014 Joby\u2019s taxis fit four passengers plus a pilot.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can assume that the demand is going to have peaks at particularly popular times, and these small vehicles will have a hard time providing enough seats for all of the people who want to take them at those popular times,\u201d Engel said. <\/p>\n