President Macron has been invited to take the inaugural flight of Paris’s new electric flying taxi service, which has been authorised for a trial timed to coincide with the Olympics.
The invitation came as Macron’s government allowed the one-passenger craft built by Volocopter, a German company, to land on a barge on the Seine until the end of this year.
“If he wanted to be the first European to fly on this type of vehicle … at the Olympic Games, he would be welcome,” said Augustin de Romanet, the executive chairman of the Paris Airports Authority, which is leading the project.
However, Paris’s left-wing council was less enthusiastic, with David Belliard, the deputy mayor, describing the flying taxis as “not having any utility, anti-ecological … very expensive [and] only of interest to the wealthiest people”.
He said the council planned to go to court to seek an order quashing the authorisation for the flying taxi trial in Paris. Belliard said that Macron’s government, which is acting in a caretaker capacity after losing parliamentary elections on Sunday, had no legitimacy to take such decisions.
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The electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) industry had hoped that the Paris Olympics would serve as a launchpad for what its promoters say will be a global boom.
The 18-rotor craft, called Volocity, which can carry a pilot and one passenger, has been tested around Paris for more than a year after being given permission to use the capital’s airports and heliport. But it had been barred from taking off and landing in the city itself. Now it has been authorised to use a vertiport on a barge on the Seine near Austerlitz Bridge.
Edward Arkwright, deputy chief executive of the Paris Airport Authority, said the barge was “ready, moored, positioned”. However, the European Aviation Safety Agency has yet to authorise commercial taxi flights, which means Volocity cannot carry paying passengers. Macron, for instance, would be transported without charge if he took up the offer.
Arkwright said the aim was to have paying passengers by the end of the year. The cost is said to be between €120 and €140 for a trip between Paris airports and the city centre.
Supporters of eVTOLs say they represent the future of urban travel, enabling passengers to skip over the road congestion in cities like London and Paris while remaining quieter than helicopters. Some analysts say the market will be worth $68 billion by 2032.
