What will the flying taxis that will perform demonstration flights during the Games be used for?

A decree authorizes the installation of a floating platform in Paris, intended for the landing and take-off of flying taxis during the Olympic Games. But what is it and what will they really be used for?

Less than three weeks before the Paris Olympics, the government is removing an obstacle to the deployment of electric flying taxis in the capital. A decree published on Tuesday, July 9, authorizes the installation of a floating platform for the takeoff and landing of these machines during the Olympic Games.
A green light that has been awaited for several months by the Aéroports de Paris group. For its part, the Paris city hall is fiercely opposed to this experimental project.

A flying taxi is a machine halfway between an insect and a helicopter, with a sort of crown above the cockpit where 18 propellers powered by electric batteries turn. The flying taxi has a range of 30 kilometers and can reach 110 km/h. It only carries one person, in addition to the pilot. It is a German company, Volocopter, which manufactures those that will soon fly over Paris.

The ambition is to operate this type of aircraft on several lines, notably between Charles de Gaulle-Étoile and Le Bourget airports, but also between the Issy-les-Moulineaux heliport and a barge positioned on the Seine near the Quai d’Austerlitz, in the heart of Paris. It is to this floating platform that the government has just given its green light.

For the moment, there is no question of marketing these lines because the project leaders have not yet obtained European certification. They will therefore have to make do with free demonstration flights during the Games. These tests will take place between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and no more than two takeoffs and/or landings per hour, as specified in the decree. The experimental phase must end no later than December 31. Aéroports de Paris, which initiated the project, is taking advantage of the Olympic Games to promote this new mode of transport intended to ease traffic congestion in the Île-de-France region.

But the project is hotly contested. Last September, the Environmental Authority – a body that depends on the Ministry of Ecological Transition – had ruled “incomplete” the impact study concerning the floating platform. The causes: noise and visual pollution, the energy consumption of flying taxis but also the risk to the safety of passengers and Parisians.

Following this report, the elected members of the Paris Council in turn issued a negative opinion in November 2023, denouncing a “ecological aberration”On France Bleu Paris, the deputy for mobility for the city of Paris, David Belliard, regrets a project “very expensive” Who “will only affect the wealthiest people.” Anne Hidalgo’s entourage has specified that the mayor of Paris will consider filing a legal appeal against the order. For their part, ADP and its partners insist on “utility” of these devices and promise to one day offer a kind of flying ambulance.