To the vertiport, of course.
Wisk Aero, an Advanced Air Mobility company and Boeing subsidiary aiming to bring self-flying air taxis to Southeast Texas by the end of the decade, has designed its potential initial routes for its service.
A preliminary map of proposed routes, provided exclusively to the Houston Chronicle, features six vertiport locations in the Houston area and nine routes.
“Texas has definitely a big role to play in Advanced Air Mobility,” said Emilien Marchand, Wisk’s director of ecosystem partnerships.
[…]
An average flight time will be 15 minutes, Marchand said. Wisk aims for its prices to be comparable per mile to an Uber Black.
Marchand said one of the potential options for a downtown Houston location for the vertiport is the George R. Brown Convention Center. Multiple factors make the conversion center an enticing place for a landing pad, including its location on the east side of downtown and it being a close walking distance to other major entertainment venues in the area.
Nothing is finalized, however, and Marchand noted that Wisk will not choose the location for the downtown Houston hub.
“The FAA has a big say in this,” Marchand said. “But then when you’re on the ground level, and when you think about permitting of infrastructure, the city and the various management districts are going to be a final say.”
Marchand said Houston is a priority market for Wisk for a few reasons, including the decentralization locations of businesses across the region and the history of aerospace innovation in the city.
But Wisk also believes their product can have a greater impact in Houston than other areas where public transportation is far more robust.
“It’s not like in New York, where you have a really well distributed subway system where you could go from one end of the city to the next,” Marchand said. “We don’t see it as a solution for everything; it’s part of the solution. It’s going to be a complementary mode of transport for city planners and regional transportation planners to have in their quiver.”
See here, here, here, and here for some background. It was always clear that this was a niche service, which the Wisk spokesperson implicitly acknowledges, but seeing this map really makes me wonder who it’s for. I mean, I’ve lived in Houston since 1988, and I’ve only ever needed to travel between IAH and Hobby once. I was driving my roomie Matt to the airport, and as we entered IAH, we had this conversation:
Me: Okay, so what terminal are you going to?
Matt: Well, I’m flying Southwest, so…
Me: Don’t they fly from Hobby?
Matt: Oh, shit.
Fortunately, we had left the house early enough to get him to Hobby on time. All I’m saying is, there are people who need to make this kind of trip. I don’t know who they are – I’m sure Wisk does, but I don’t – and I have no idea how many of them there are. I would love to know more about them.
The downtown and Energy Corridor vertiports (new vocabulary word alert!) intrigue me more. Geographically they make sense, but as I’ve discussed before, if you want to take one of these nifty flying taxis you have to get yourself to where they are first. That adds time and possibly expense to your trip, which would seem to upset the case for Wisking it in the first place. Why not just take that Uber Black straight to the airport, instead of Ubering or driving yourself to the vertiport first (and paying for parking in the latter instance)? Again, I’m sure Wisk knows who their target audience is. I’m just saying I’d like to know who they are as well, because it’s not something I can intuit.
Anyway. I remain fascinated by this subject and will keep an eye on it. Now that you know where you could hail (okay, probably reserve ahead of time) one of these, would you do it?
I think their choice of airports is likely to smooth the FAA hurdles.
Gimme a Downtown to Galveston!