Can helicopter taxis rescue the harried Jakarta commuter?
Necessity is the mother of invention, and transport companies are looking at business models to help commuters fly over their daily grinds
Jakarta’s traffic is among the worst in the world and no doubt leaves millions of commuters wishing they could simply fly away from the day-to-day gridlock. But soon, that may no longer be mere wishful thinking.
Motivated in part by the economic impact of congested motorways, and demand from Indonesia’s rising middle class to resolve to the city’s decades-old traffic issues, aviation operators are turning to helicopters as a possible solution.
While several companies such as Uber and Grab have expressed – and even made public – plans to provide helicopter taxis, Whitesky Aviation, which claims to be Indonesia’s pioneer in the market, is the only one with an operational service. The company, which previously served only corporate clients, has undergone a year-long service trial and recently launched a helicopter taxi service called Helicity. The service offers individual passengers rides around Greater Jakarta and Bandung in West Java, both areas infamous for their relentless traffic.
The service provides an alternative mode of transportation for commuters who want both a break from stress and considerably shorter travel times. For example, the 120km journey from Jakarta to Bandung which takes up to four hours by car at normal times, and about eight hours during holiday seasons, would only take about 40 minutes in a helicopter.
Such services have been around in some form for years, but what sets Helicity apart is its ability to reach a wider customer base – a problem other would-be operators, such as Uber and Grab, have so far been unable to solve.
