Air taxis failed to get certified for the Paris Olympics. There’s still hope for LA 2028

Germany’s Volocopter and other autonomous flying taxi firms look to usher in a new era in public transport at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics

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Flying taxi operator Volocopter hopes to get permission to carry passengers over Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in December. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 6:47pm, 12 Aug 2024Updated: 4:27am, 13 Aug 2024

It was a tantalising vision: autonomous flying taxis zipping spectators around the Paris Olympics, their electric engines humming softly over the cityscape, ushering in a new era in public transport.

Certification delays dashed that dream. But the backers of the Volocopter aircraft that was meant to ferry Olympic fans are not giving up. They carried out a test flight on Sunday, marking the last day of the 2024 Olympics with a sunrise demonstration over the resplendent grounds of the Versailles palace.

The craft carried baggage, but no people, when it took off from the gardens of Versailles, from where the first hot-air balloon took flight in 1783.

The Paris region had planned for a small fleet of pilot-less air taxis for the Olympics, operated by Germany’s Volocopter and the Paris airport authority ADP.

Five Olympic routes were planned, including one landing on a platform on the Seine River – and Volocopter chief executive Dirk Hoke hoped that French President Emmanuel Macron would be his first passenger.

Augustin de Romanet, chief executive of Groupe ADP, poses after riding on a test flight of the VoloCity flying taxi at the Trianon in Versailles, west of Paris, on August 11, 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE

But Augustin de Romanet, chief executive of Parisian international airports operator Groupe ADP, said on Thursday that Volocopter had failed to win certification from Europe’s air safety agency in time for the Games.