A 5-Minute Ride Proves the Future of Air Travel Is Already Here
It’s fast — and expensive
The Urban Air Mobility vehicle is already waiting as I step from the New York City curbside into the waiting lounge. The room is sleek, equipped with couches and an open bar, but there’s no time for me to luxuriate. An attendant dressed in black ushers me through a door and out onto a platform that projects over the Hudson River. Another attendant helps me and a second passenger strap in — and then we’re off. Amid a thrumming downwash of air, we levitate, and the bustle of the city falls away beneath us.
Through the bubble windows I look down on sailboats, brownstone courtyards, bustling avenues. We’re zooming along at 95 miles per hour, just 800 feet off the ground, low enough that all the everyday details stand out, so that everything seems more like flying in a dream than the normal experience of aviation. And, like a good dream, it’s over too soon: the sensation of dropping, the ground growing closer. We touch down on a landing pad, the doors pop open, and another attendant helps us out. We’ve traveled 13 miles across the congested city — a distance that would have taken an hour by limo and even longer by train — in just five minutes.
This is the kind of travel that science fiction has long promised: levitating vehicles that whisk impatient…
