NEOM and Volocopter: First electric air taxi flight in Saudi Arabia

NEOM and Volocopter: First electric air taxi flight in Saudi Arabia

NEOM, Volocopter, and Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) target readiness and growth of eVTOL operations in KSA through ongoing collaboration and NEOM-based air taxi testbed NEOM, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – NEOM, the smart and sustainable regional development in northwest Saudi Arabia, and Volocopter, the pioneer of urban air mobility (UAM), announced today the successful completion of a series of air taxi test flights. This marks the first time an eVTOL (electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft has received a special flight authorization and performed test flights in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The flight test campaign lasted over a week and built on 18 months of collaboration between NEOM, the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), and Volocopter, with the aim of implementing and scaling an electric UAM ecosystem and testbed in NEOM. The parties worked closely to ensure full regulatory compliance and safety ahead of the test campaign. Nadhmi Al-Nasr, CEO of NEOM , said: “The successful test flight of a Volocopter eVTOL is not just another milestone towards the creation of NEOM’s innovative, sustainable, multimodal transportation system – it is a tangible example of NEOM as a global accelerator and incubator of solutions to