ORLANDO, Fla. – Advanced Air Mobility. That’s the conversation officials with the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority had on Tuesday in effort to advance transportation at Orlando International Airport.
And it’s not ground transportation they focused on, it was more so about air taxis also known as Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircrafts.
“The hope is having a diverse opportunity to move people as they come to visit Orlando or even if they live here in Orlando, their options to get to point A to point B have been expanded,” said Kevin Thibault, CEO of Greater Orlando Aviation Authority.
Thibault explained the airport is seeking to meet the industry needs to develop state of the art facilities to test the readiness of the air taxis and collect data on aircraft performance.
“One of the things indicated to us and others is that they want to connect in major cities where people want to have mobility options to get from an airport to downtown or in our case, an airport to attractions,” Thibault explained.
Florida’s first air taxi test flight actually took place at Tampa International Airport last month, though Thibault said there’s still a lot more that needs to be done.
“It’s still a few years out, again, not controlled by us, equipment is controlled by others no different than the evolution of the aircraft, right? That’s controlled by those developers so what we really are running into here is how do we get in front of that in the sense of what their needs are as infrastructure just like an airplane here today. They need a jet bridge, they need fuel connections,” Thibault said.
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