Airbus has emphasized that it does not want to end its CityAirbus air taxi project. The company announced that news that was currently circulating about a halt to the project was not correct.

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“CityAirbus is not just the demonstrator that we are testing today in Manching and will continue to operate for a while “, it says in a message to heise online. CityAirbus is the entire program, “and we will continue this program up to a product that we will offer on the market”.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine had reported, citing company groups, the electrically powered whiz kid will not be pursued beyond its test program, which expires in November. The world reported that the CityAirbus was a demonstrator and will possibly remain permanently on the ground. At Airbus there is also internal competition with the Vahana, which is based in Oregon.

Engineers Wolfgang Schoder, Germany boss of Airbus Helicopters, told Bayerischer Rundfunk that the CityAirbus project was just getting started. For the next five years a “substantial three-digit million amount” was planned. Schoder went on to explain that Airbus’ air taxi will ultimately not look like the CityAirbus demonstrator currently does. 60 Engineers were working on the project in the core team.

CityAirbus air taxi (12 Pictures) The CityAirbus completed its first complete demonstration flight in May 2019.

(Image: Airbus) The CityAirbus is an electric aircraft with eight rotors that can take off and land vertically. It is supposed to transport up to four passengers on fixed routes without a pilot and bring them from city centers to airports, for example. The flight route cannot be freely chosen by the passengers, so strictly speaking it is not a real flying taxi.

In August, Airbus started test flights with the CityAirbus in Manching near Ingolstadt. Ingolstadt should in future M