What Airbus’ On-Demand Helo Service Has Learned in its First 100 Days

Deadlines that companies have given themselves to demonstrate aspects of on-demand urban mobility will be here within a matter of years. Uber, for example, hopes to conduct a pilot operation of its Elevate initiative in Dallas in 2020. (Mark Moore, Uber Engineering’s director of aviation, plans to discuss this topic at R&WI’s Rotorcraft Business & Technology Summit.)

Airbus has a several projects in the works, one being Vahana, which is planned to take its first flight before next year. But not all urban mobility projects are slated for some time in the future. In fact, one Airbus venture just celebrated 100 days in operation.

Airbus outpost A3 had its 100th day in operation with Voom Tuesday. Voom is an on on-demand helicopter charter service that can, according to the company, fly passengers for the same price as a private car service. It is operating in São Paulo, Brazil, from five different facilities. Voom’s CEO and A3 head of special projects, Uma Subramanian, said the company has learned several things from data it has collected over those 100 days.

(Evangle Luo of TTFLY shared with you)