Flying cabs may smack of science fiction, if not of science fantasy. Yet many mobility experts envision a future of small, car-like vehicles that avoid the congested streets of our cities by zipping through the skies above them. More than 250 businesses of all forms and sizes are preparing to manufacture, build, or operate these air taxis in the next five years. These will mostly be multi-rotor or multi-winged electric vehicles that take off and land vertically, seat two to six passengers, and have a 30-to-300-mile range. While some might personally own such vehicles, we expect the vast majority to be operated in a shared fashion. When this urban air mobility (UAM) market reaches scale and its full potential, our latest estimates suggest, the global opportunity will be on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars a year.1
But the flight path from here to there is uncertain. UAM needs to overcome a number of challenges—from technology to regulatory to public acceptance to air traffic management to physical infrastructure, to name a few. In addition, it needs to resolve a pilot challenge. These vehicles will eventually fly autonomously, but that could take a decade or more because of technology issues, regulatory concerns, and the need to gain public acceptance. Until autonomous flight of hundreds or thousands of vehicles above cities across the globe becomes a reality, the industry must recruit, train, and deploy thousands of pilots—an important but much less visible challenge than other issues associated with UAM.
Pilots will help the public recognize the value proposition for UAM. Before taking flight, however, they must gain experience with this new mode of transport and help compile data about it. Pilots must also understand broader operational issues and help build confidence in the industry’s safety and reliability among regulators and the public.
Although neither the length nor the nature of this transition to autonomy is obvious, we have identified four key phases:
- no automation or human assistance (current capabilities, where computer systems may assist human pilots by reducing workload and providing safety protections)
- partial and conditional automation, in which pilots provide some control from the ground but onboard automation systems control the majority of activities
- high automation with remote supervised vehicles (one supervisor on the ground monitoring multiple aircraft)
- full automation2
UAM providers may be able to leapfrog some stages, or some stages could overlap.
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SOURCE: McKinsey & Company
