Advanced air mobility can do to India’s transport what telephony did to its communications, Boeing India Chief

Advanced air mobility can do to India’s transport what telephony did to its communications, said Salil Gupte, president, Boeing India and chairman, CII National Committee on Aerospace at the CII ASHA (Advanced Short-Haul Air Mobility) conference cum exhibition at Bengaluru on Tuesday.

“In telecom India skipped stages where the rest of the world was stuck. We have seen India leapfrog from landline to mobile to 4G to 5G roll-outs at lightning speed. India can do the same in transport if it chooses to embrace the AAM (Advanced Air Mobility) technologies and create the right ecosystem for it” said Gupte. AAM comprises drones, helicopters, e-VTOL (electric, vertical take-off and landing systems) and other air-systems used for ferrying people and goods over short distances.

“An average Indian traveller spends a substantially higher time commuting compared for short-haul travel his counterpart in other Asian cities and other global cities. Technologies that we are discussing since yesterday, drones, helicopters, e-VTOL have the opportunity to reduce this drastically and India can leapfrog in urban mobility. India is good at that. That is exactly what has happened through telephony in last 25 years” Gupte said.

India can do the same in transport if it chooses to embrace the AAM technologies provided the country creates the right ecosystem for it, he added. “For instance, technologies have to be evaluated from many perspectives not only from civil but also from a defence angle. We need sustained electrification of these technologies. At a time, when Boeing with its partners like International Air Transport Association (IATA ), International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and others are committed to achieve Net-Zero by 2050, we cannot do anything with advanced mobility sector that makes it a bogeyman in (green) space," Gupte added.

“The take-off of AAM will need a robust ecosystem that includes vehicles, training and education, research and development, landing structure, fleet-management, demand management, linkages with other mobility system,” said Mr Kamal Bali, President and MD Volvo Group in India, and chairman, CII Southern Region. For the industry, it will mean huge new value chain, new economic clusters and many new jobs.

Gupte said while India moves ahead in AAM sector, other related areas that will need close attention include cyber security to keep this ecosystem safe and integrated airspace management. “Another country in Asia about 10 to 15 years back faced significant flight delays due to lack of integration between defence airspace and civil space. India has done a much better job in this but as we are thrown in short-haul air mobility some of which is unmanned, there is a lot to be thought and work needed.” he said.

“We at Boeing believe safety is of paramount importance. For this industry to take off, we will have to demand similar amount of safety as to what we get in civil aviation. That means  -- 99.97 safety -- this is what it will take for people to trust and get onboard these vehicles,” concluded Gupte.

Bengaluru,
28 March