Avoiding the large traffic jams that form in hyperpopulated cities is no longer a utopia. This week a new milestone was achieved in the future of air transport in urban areas, precisely in one of the cities with the most complicated road traffic: New York. Its inhabitants have been able to verify that soon they will be able to move around the city in a matter of minutes in silent electric air taxis, a non-polluting mobility alternative.

After making its first demonstration flight in Manhattan on November 12, the new Joby flying taxi has passed the tests to soon be able to offer its regular commercial services. This is a novelty both for the Californian manufacturer of eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles), which until now had not flown its electric aircraft in an urban environment, and for the city itself.

A year ago, the Joby Aviation team partnered with the airline Delta Air Lines with the goal of turning this dream into a reality through an ambitious local air mobility project. Starting in 2025, New York City residents won’t have to spend an hour on the road to get to JFK International Airport. This futuristic air taxi will take you there in just seven minutes, without any uncomfortable noise and without polluting the air.

Joby and Delta will offer passengers of the North American airline traveling between New York and Los Angeles access to air taxi to make trips to and from JFK and LaGuardia airports. Local authorities are determined to turn New York into an AAM (Advanced Air Mobility) center as is happening in other cities around the world. To achieve this, one of the important steps is to electrify both the heliport located in the city center and the airports.

The Joby air taxi, which has five seats to transport four passengers and a pilot, has two specific characteristics that make it suitable for commercial operations in New York. Firstly, it can cover almost all the routes currently taken in the five boroughs that make up New York, thanks to its range of 160 km on a single charge.

Secondly, it is one of the quietest electric air taxis available. Last year, tests conducted in collaboration with NASA confirmed that the eVTOL Joby is significantly quieter than standard helicopters. It recorded a noise level of less than 65 dBA during takeoff and landing, which is equivalent to a normal conversation. As for the noise level recorded during the flight, it is even lower, only 45 dBA.

Finally, it can reach a speed of up to 320 km/h, although flights around the city are expected to be more relaxed.

If you want to see the recent exhibition flight that the Joby made between the skyscrapers of the Big Apple, don’t miss the video that illustrates this news about the not-so-distant future of urban air mobility.