3 ms·

When I worked in London a lot of weekly commuters flew rather than to the train from Scotland, or even Manchester given the absurd peak time train fares even th

When I worked in London a lot of weekly commuters flew rather than to the train from Scotland, or even Manchester given the absurd peak time train fares even though flying was usually slower on that route. These commuter trips definitely won’t be replaced with small planes since capacity at London airports is too constrained.

jillesvangurp 3y ago
You assume that you would need big airports. The UK is full of smaller airports. And more could be built if there is demand. Noise and pollution are much less of a factor with electrical planes. And with vtols, any open space or roof potentially qualifies as a spot where you can land. Most of the constraints with current aviation don't really apply here.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Lilium is one of the companies that aimed for the "air taxi" market and touted any space or roof. They've since both increased the size of their planes a bit and dropped the idea in favour of flying between dedicated sites and backed away from the "air taxi" vision towards flying between small regional sites. I think the issue being that even if you get to the noise level needed, convincing regulators about the safety will take a long time. I think there will be market, and it might also very well make expansion of existing airports less controversial if it is for less noisy tiny electric VTOL planes, but I think at best in the short to medium term they'll also be able to fly to helipads. Getting additional locations approved will probably happen, but I suspect it will be a very slow, arduous process at first, which will only accelerate once people have both spent significant time near a landing site and not felt inconvenienced enough to oppose one elsewhere and flown in these planes and felt them convenient enough to want them nearby.
- laurencerowe 3y ago
  The flight is only part of the journey. People mostly want to get to city centres where the offices are. Small airports just don't have the transport links to get into the centre. It's bad enough trying to get to Stansted Airport on its slow train and that has 27M annual passengers.

jillesvangurp 3y ago

You assume that you would need big airports. The UK is full of smaller airports. And more could be built if there is demand. Noise and pollution are much less of a factor with electrical planes. And with vtols, any open space or roof potentially qualifies as a spot where you can land. Most of the constraints with current aviation don't really apply here.

vidarh 3y ago
Lilium is one of the companies that aimed for the "air taxi" market and touted any space or roof. They've since both increased the size of their planes a bit and dropped the idea in favour of flying between dedicated sites and backed away from the "air taxi" vision towards flying between small regional sites. I think the issue being that even if you get to the noise level needed, convincing regulators about the safety will take a long time. I think there will be market, and it might also very well make expansion of existing airports less controversial if it is for less noisy tiny electric VTOL planes, but I think at best in the short to medium term they'll also be able to fly to helipads. Getting additional locations approved will probably happen, but I suspect it will be a very slow, arduous process at first, which will only accelerate once people have both spent significant time near a landing site and not felt inconvenienced enough to oppose one elsewhere and flown in these planes and felt them convenient enough to want them nearby.
laurencerowe 3y ago
The flight is only part of the journey. People mostly want to get to city centres where the offices are. Small airports just don't have the transport links to get into the centre. It's bad enough trying to get to Stansted Airport on its slow train and that has 27M annual passengers.