ATLANTA — The future of air travel includes new ways to get to the airport.
Flight testing is underway for air taxis that will pick you up from your home and take you to your flight.
Channel 2’s Karyn Greer spoke one-on-one with Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian this week, who told her that Delta is a partner with the company working to make it all happen.
Joby Aviation is positioned to lead the way with electric air taxis, and Delta Air Lines is helping them in a first-of-its-kind partnership.
“I’ve heard you talk about air taxis, that being a way to help us get around as well. Is that gonna be reality?” Greer asked Bastian.
“Yeah, we’re investors in Joby. They’re partners with them. You’ll see that flying next year. It’s already flying in some parts of the world in the Middle East. They’re already starting to operate them,” Bastian said.
Joby Aviation is based in Dayton, Ohio. The company’s first scaled aircraft production facility is capable of delivering up to 500 aircraft a year from its 140-acre site at the Dayton International Airport.
“It’s really not intended to take the air traffic off. It’s really the roadways. But, you know, Atlanta, you have a lot of congestion. And you can imagine, if you live in the northern suburbs or down south, kind of a 10-minute ride on a Joby that will land you on top of a Delta lounge, and then you get whisked to your plane five minutes later, that’s a pretty cool experience,” Bastian said.
Joby is working right now on commercial passenger certification from the Federal Aviation Administration. If all goes well, the taxis could be flying by 2026.
And when it comes to artificial intelligence…
“I think there’s a lot of opportunity. I think that there’s also a lot of hype around things like AI. And we’re being very cautious to make certain that it’s AI that’s going to help people solve problems. The biggest access point we have between our customers and ourselves is the FlyDelta app. And it’s a great app. There’s many more things we can do with that app to make it more available to help customers take control of the process themselves,” Bastian said.
Delta is advertising skip the traffic with an electric air taxi. The initial launch for Delta and the Joby Air Taxis will be in New York and Los Angeles, two of the busiest cities in the U.S.
No word yet on when they could launch in Atlanta.
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