The UK’s new Labour government will unveil its first budget on October 30, with its critical challenge being how to meet its pledges to reinvest in the country’s depleted public services and infrastructure while not breaching commitments made in the buildup to the July 4 general election. Transportation is just one among many key sectors vying for attention and support, with long-promised improvements to rail connections, especially in the north of England, having languished for years.
Advanced air mobility (AAM) is highly unlikely to get a shoutout in the budget presented by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves. But advocates for electric aviation will be scouring the small print for clues as to whether the new administration can be expected to maintain or even increase support for technology development under the banner of meeting net-zero carbon commitments.
In higher-profile prospective markets like the U.S. and Gulf states, just about all the attention is on the anticipated launch of urban air mobility (UAM) eVTOL air taxi services. In the UK, however, the transportation consultants at EA Maven have been pushing the case for regional air mobility (RAM), with hybrid-electric STOL aircraft serving longer routes to connect cities rather than simply moving people around within the most densely populated conurbations.
In a paper presented earlier this year, co-founders Darrell Swanson and Jarek Zych present a vision for early-stage AAM business models in the UK with an initial timeline running up to 2035. Refreshingly, their case studies avoid the usual fixation on the greater London area, focusing on cities including Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham (and the wider East Midlands region), Cardiff, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Belfast, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Plymouth, Cranfield, and Southend-on-Sea.
The potential route network generated by EA Maven goes beyond the current limits of battery-electric aircraft to show a potential for a UK RAM network with an average sector length of 143 miles. Alongside this, the study shows an average sector length for UAM flights of 71 miles, which is actually quite long by comparison, with early uses cases reported in markets such as California and Dubai.
"One of our big messages is that RAM will be bigger than UAM," Swanson told AIN. "Ultimately, there is just more utility for RAM than UAM. RAM in the UK could put £1 billion back into the economy through time savings alone, where UAM only puts back £615 million."
Connecting Britain's Provincial Cities
A peak-time 130-mile journey from Hull on northern England’s east coast to Liverpool on the west coast would require an exhausting drive of 4 hours 30 minutes. The same trip using the highly unreliable and antiquated rail network would take around 3 hours, without the all-too-common delays and service disruptions.
EA Maven’s number crunching shows a potential longer-term RAM network across the British Isles covering 63 airports and 684 routes, carrying just over 430 million passengers each year, with less than a quarter of these being business travelers. By comparison, the study shows, one-third of the anticipated 316 million UAM passengers would be making work-related trips.
The projections for RAM’s impact envisage a UK fleet of just under 1,000 aircraft, which would include those using hybrid-electric propulsion systems capable of operating on up to 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The EA Maven team also anticipates a transition to hydrogen-based propulsion that would increase reductions in carbon emissions from flights. By comparison, the projected UAM use cases would require 2,200 aircraft and around 1,200 landing sites, including vertiports.
In 2035, when 10% of possible routes would be in operation, EA Maven expects a RAM network of only 23 airports and 70 routes, with UAM services on just over 100 routes. In this period, RAM and UAM services combined might save 10.4 million hours of travel time, resulting in increased annual productivity of £275 million ($358 million).
The projected carbon savings would be greatest where passengers are leaving their cars at home to take the new regional air services. For passengers switching from rail services, the RAM services would still generate more carbon until SAF use reached 32.9% of the overall fuel mix for hybrid aircraft.
EA Maven sees RAM and UAM services generating almost identical annual revenues from flights at, respectively, £2.24 billion and £2.27 billion (with £307.8 million and £503.3 million through 2035). RAM flights would generate £227.6 million in additional landing and ground handling charge revenues for airports (£41 million in 2035), while UAM services could generate almost £600 million in revenues for vertiport operators from both landing and handling charges, and from electric charging (£224 million in 2035).
The latest paper builds on early work by EA Maven, which last year created a UK City Air Mobility Index.