Île-de-France will cancel a subsidy of one million euros granted to experiment with electric “flying taxis” in Paris, a new setback for this controversial project, we learned from the executive on Friday regional.
The president (LR) of the region Valérie Pécresse submitted to elected officials a project to withdraw the subsidy granted to Groupe ADP, manager of Paris airports, to install a platform moored at the Quai d'Austerlitz, in the east of the capital , according to the text of this deliberation transmitted to AFP.
The principle of this payment was adopted on November 17, 2023, but “following delays at different levels (…), the experiment could not take place under the conditions envisaged”, explained Ms. Pécresse .
From the same source, ADP and its industrial partner, the German aircraft manufacturer Volocopter, initially hoped to carry out “1,000 general public flights over six months on a link between Paris and the Issy-les-Moulineaux heliport”.
According to Ms. Pécresse's office, the decision will be ratified on November 15.
This cancellation does not call into question Île-de-France's support for innovation in general and vertical take-off and landing machines (VTOLs, their acronym in English) in particular, assured the executive.
It comes three months after the promoters of this project announced that they had given up on flying these aircraft during the Paris Olympic Games.
The certification of the Volocity, the machine designed and manufactured by Volocopter, suffered a “lag of a few weeks” linked to its engines, ADP then indicated, saying it hoped for flights at the time of the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral, in December.
The Ministry of Transport, which authorized experiments from Austerlitz until December 31, did not wish to comment on Friday.
“We are ready to be able to carry out an experiment in December, from the Austerlitz barge with our partner Volocopter,” ADP told AFP on Friday. The airport group controlled by the French state recorded a net profit of 347 million euros in the first half of 2024.
Judging for her part that the “experiment is abandoned” given the absence of certification and the withdrawal of the subsidy, the president of the Communist Left opposition group, environmentalist and citizen Céline Malisé, sees it as “a considerable setback for Valérie Pécresse and the project leaders who used their network of influence to circumvent the unfavorable opinions of the public inquiry commission in February 2024 and the environmental authority in the fall of 2023.
