Spain’s air navigation agency, Enaire, intends to start air taxi flight trials in Barcelona and Santiago de Compostela during 2022. The group’s director-general, Angel Luis Arias, announced the plan on November 2 during a conference organized by the country’s College of Aeronautical Engineers called “The Future Is Waiting for Us: the New Urban Air Mobility.”
Enaire, which is under the jurisdiction of the Spanish government’s Ministry of Transport, Mobility, and Urban Agenda, indicated that it will pursue the project as part of two initiatives that already have support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 fund as part of the SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) Joint Undertaking on U-Space and Urban Air Mobility. The first of these projects, called CORUS-XUAM, is run by European air traffic control agency Eurocontrol, which oversees Sesar. The second, called AMU-LED, is being run by data management company Everis. U-Space refers to a set of new “services and specific procedures” that SESAR intends to be used to support the integration of unmanned aircraft in controlled airspace.
In a statement issued on November 3, Enaire did not provide any details as to whom it might partner with to run the planned flight demonstrations. Among Europe-based eVTOL aircraft developers, companies such as Lilium, Volocopter, and Vertical Aerospace might conceivably have prototypes ready for public trials within two years.