Urban Air Mobility has failed in the 1960s — Whats different now?
On December 21, 1965 the first helicopter service between JFK airport and midtown Manhattan was launched on the top of the picturesque new Pan Am building. The massive twin-rotor Boeing Vertol helicopters seated 20 passengers and offered an unmatched, glamorous and exciting air taxi service. The concept reflected much of the new Jet Age: a just 7-minute trip connected the heart of Midtown and JFK for $7. Passengers could enjoy a breathtaking sight of NewYork, before they landed on the 59th floor of the Pan Am building. After a drink or a cigar at the penthouse restaurant the elevator took them straight down to the busy streets. The helipad had a convenient location right next to Grand Central Terminal and thus offered connection to all areas of New York City in a short time. A multi-modal mobility dream come true. However, the service was abandoned shortly after in 1968 and resumed again for only a few months in 1977. An accident on May 16th, 1977, ended the Jet Age for New York: The landing gear of one helicopter failed and it felt over with a rotor falling off. The blade hit four people on the landing pad waiting to board, with three killed on impact. Many waiting passengers had to witness this cruel accident and on the next day pictures of the accident populated all newspaper cover pages. That was the end of Urban Air Mobility with the Pan Am heliport ceasing operation permanently.
The Idea of air taxis has failed in the past and thus it will fail again!
For the past two years, since I am involved in research on urban air mobility, or air taxis, I am constantly approached by people pointing out that there has been urban air mobility already 60 years ago and that it did fail and thus the current trend of air taxis is doomed to have the same fate.
But is this really the case? Almost every successful innovation has been there before — Nokia had already invented the smartphone long before Apple did. The Nokia Communicator was available from the mid-90s, offering emails, internet and apps on the go. Needless to say it wasn’t a big market hit. Slight improvements in the product or changes in the environment may alter the fate of a new technology drastically. Changing the user-interface from a keyboard to a touch-screen and the rising abundance of fast mobile internet brought smartphones from a market failure to a mass-market phenomenon.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man. Heraclitus (Greek philosopher born in 544 b.c.)
To understand why urban air mobility could become a market hit this time I want do dig deeper on why it failed in the first place:
Why was the dream of urban air mobility abandoned after 1977?
While the final accident was dramatic and certainly tragic, it was only the tipping point of a longer progress that opposed the idea of an air taxi. To understand this, we need to revisit the details of the original story. The Pan Am helipad had around 50 flights a day ‒ roughly four per hour from 8:30 am to 8:30 pm, during weekdays as well as weekends. The original twin-rotor Boeing Vertol helicopters, launched in 1965, were notoriously loud. The constant helicopter traffic predictably ignited a fierce Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) reaction from locals who had to endure the constant roaring of helicopters coming in and flying out of the city. The slightly quieter Sikorsky S-61 military helicopters introduced in the second attempt in 1977 did not do a much better job in pacifying the citizens of downtown Manhattan. The people protesting against the helicopters were supported by many important and glamorous citizens of New York, including famous actress Katharine Hepburn, who stated:
“New York is noisy and dangerous enough without this nerve-wracking addition of a luxury trade operating to the distress of many and to the benefit of few.”
This citation reflects the key problem with urban air mobility in the early days: it was a service for the few, who were able to afford it, while the vast majority of the population of New York suffered the consequences of increased noise and potential accident hazard. We all know that we are quite tolerant to noise if it is something we uniquely enjoy, such as a new year’s firework or a rock concert. But also the amount of noise emission from cars and trucks on our city roads is generally no reason for citizen’s to protest. Since we all want our cars parked neatly close to our homes we accept the noise emission or don’t even consciously realize it anymore. In our research on the acceptance of air taxis we found out that individual acceptance is highly correlated with societal acceptance. Put in other words, if you would consider using air taxis yourself, you are much more likely to accept them flying around in your city, but also vice versa. The study results can be openly accessed in this whitepaper.
It is important to note that most current air taxi concepts are electric and by a large magnitude more silent than the helicopters used in the 60s. This creates the possibility for large scale adoption in major metropolitan areas around the world. However, in our research, citizens were still concerned about various other factors, including moving shadows, disturbed sight and accident hazard. Thus for policymakers and companies involved in UAM, it is critical to position air taxis as a service for the masses from the first day onwards, in order to avoid opposition from the larger part of the population.
It seems tempting for air taxi providers to start their service as a up-scale modern replacement of the existing helicopter lines and then try to reduce costs and increase efficiency step by step to gradually approach the mass market. Yet, this strategy will inevitable lead to the same challenges, the first wave of urban mobility has faced. With a strong opposition from citizens it will be difficult to secure potential inner-city landing spots and thus grow the service, increase efficiency and reduce costs. Only if this new generation of air taxi services are perceived as a true mass transportation option from day one there is a real chance that the age old dream of urban air mobility will final come to life.
Picture credit: GettyImages | Hulton Archive F. Roy Kemp | Volocopter GmbH
