Paris, ready for flying taxis

Flying taxis are no longer a simple utopian dream, they have become a reality, even if one that is more difficult to integrate into everyday life. France's Council of State has given the green light to a program to test electric flying taxis during the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris (26 July to 8 September). The program, authorized by the French Government, is contested by the local City Hall. The decision of the Council of State represents an emergency measure, therefore provisional, pending a hearing on the merits, which should take place in the fall. The French Ministry of Transport authorized at the beginning of July the creation of a "heliport" - a platform that allows the take-off and landing of these flying taxis - on the Seine, in the east of the French capital, and "opening it to public air traffic". The city hall of Paris immediately announced that it will appeal in court. The project was met with hostility by the municipal councilors of Paris, both those in power and those in the opposition, who denounced it as "an ecological aberration". According to the decision published in the Official Gazette of France on July 9, after several months of waiting, the operation of the floating platform will end "on December 31, 2024 at the latest", taking into account the "experimental nature" of the project developed by the Aeroports de Paris group (ADP). In her ruling, which could be consulted by AFP, the case judge rejected the series of arguments advanced by the opponents of the project. She believed, unlike those opponents, that it was not necessary to consult the Airport Disturbance Control Authority (ACNUSA) for this experiment, which has a limited duration and already contains several restrictions (regarding the operating hours of the heliport "between local times 08:00 and 17:00" and regarding the estimated number of flights "of two movements per hour and 900 flights during the entire experiment" until the end of the year). Opponents of the project also criticize the fact that the environmental study only concerned the area in the immediate vicinity of the heliport and did not assess the more general impact of the flights, an argument also rejected in court. ADP has partnered on this project with an administrative unit (Parisian Region) and with the German company Volocopter, which manufactures the "Velocity" aircraft, intended to embody the greening ambitions of the aeronautical industry. This two-seat aircraft, one of which is for the pilot, is equipped with batteries that power 18 rotors arranged in a circle above the cockpit. The objective of the project is to take advantage of the Olympic Games in Paris to demonstrate the feasibility of a new transport model in congested urban areas, through flights operated by vertical take-off and landing devices on three routes, one of which connects the heliport of Issy- les-Moulineaux, south of Paris, by barge on the Seine.