EmbraerX and Airservices Australia release CONOPS for Melbourne
Embraer subsidiary EmbraerX and Airservices, Australia’s civil air navigation service provider, have developed a new concept of operations (CONOPS) for the air taxi market.
Australia has attracted industry interest and investment due to strong government backing.
Using the City of Melbourne as a model, the CONOPS examines how existing air traffic management solutions can initially enable UAM operations while simultaneously preparing for scale of operations through new traffic management technologies. Previously, Uber announced it would test Melbourne as one of its first cities for commercial air taxi operations.
Peter Curran, chief customer experience and strategy officer at Airservices said: “We are excited to leverage our significant expertise to develop innovative solutions that ensure safe access to the urban airspace for a broad spectrum of aircraft, including conventional helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, and eVTOL aircraft.”
The CONOPS leverages Airservices’ sophisticated simulation technology to demonstrate how air taxis could be integrated with existing airspace users in the highly complex Melbourne airspace.
David Rottblatt, Project Leader for EmbraerX’s Urban Air Traffic Management and appointed to be the future Vice President of Business Development, Eve Urban Air Mobility Solutions said, “This CONOPS proposes a safe method for allowing the UAM industry in Australia to scale. Following this first critical step, we will start gathering feedback from industry stakeholders and the community to further inform how we can co-create this exciting future.”
Eve, the new EmbraerX spin-off, will be responsible for this partnership with Airservices and for the development of Urban Air Traffic Management solutions.
More information can be found here.