Germany’s Lilium sees “tremendous opportunities” for eVTOL air taxis in the MidEast, particularly in the futuristic megacities of the GCC.
“We are talking to many players in region. Whether or not it lands, it depends on them and us from a production perspective committing to the Middle East,” says Sebastien Borel, senior vice president of commercial at Lilium. “Europe, the US and Middle East will be our strongest regions, so we will have to balance the offering in each of these regions in a timely manner for [production] slots.”
The comments came earlier this week, after Saudia signed an initial agreement with Lilium to buy 100 of its aircraft to serve Saudia’s domestic network.
Those “tremendous opportunities,” meanwhile, are being built out in megacity projects like The Line, a proposed, 106 mile long, self-sufficient city that packs vertical greenery and a mirror-finish exterior into a veritable smorgasbord of high-minded city planning idealism. It’s pretty wild.
Artist’s Rendering of The Line
Beyond being wild, it’s much further along than that “proposed” tag may imply. It’s actually under construction right now, despite the fact that a lot of the tech that will be needed to make it a reality is still in development.
That said, everyone is pretty optimistic about it. “The government of Saudi Arabia unveiled plans in 2021 for the city of Neom,” reads science site, HowStuffWorks. “(It includes) a megastructure called The Line, a massive scheme still years from completion. The Line is designed to be an entire city composed of two parallel, 656-foot-wide (200-meter-wide) skyscrapers, each 106 miles (170 kilometers) long and 1,640 feet (500 meters) high (higher than most of the world’s tallest skyscrapers), stretching across the northwest part of Saudi Arabia near the Red Sea.”
We think something like The Line is, indeed, the perfect application for an eVTOL air taxi service like the one Lilium and Saudia are proposing — but that’s just us. Check out the source links, below, then let us know what you think of all this in the comments.
SOURCES | LINKS: THE NATIONAL, SCIENCE.
FTC: We use income-earning auto affiliate links. Learn more.
