(The company, while working with Uber on the Uber Elevate project, also has its own working title for flying taxis - Bell Air.) The idea would be for North Texans to use other forms of ride-sharing or ride-hailing services such as Uber or Lyft for ground transportation from the vertiports to their final destination.įor Bell, air taxis would be a new niche. Hillwood, the company that developed Fort Worth's AllianceTexas development, would provide the station locations and other ground infrastructure. Other vertiports would be added in future years at strategic locations in Fort Worth, Arlington and Dallas.
One vertiport would be at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport and the other would be at Frisco Station, near the Dallas Cowboys' new headquarters, The Star at Frisco. Initially, the air taxi service, which has a working title of Uber Elevate, would operate from two "vertiports," which could be on flat land or the rooftop of a multistory building. It would amount to a whole new business segment for the company, which is better known for its large-scale production of military and civilian helicopters.
The service would use battery-powered helicopters that take off and land vertically (like a tilt-rotor helicopter, but smaller and quieter) that would be developed and manufactured by Bell. "We expect test flights by 2020, and we anticipate commercial operation by 2023," Stan Swainitek, Uber's head of operations for aviation programs, told about 650 attendees last week at Tarrant County Commissioner Gary Fickes' annual transportation summit in Hurst. Uber and Fort Worth-based Bell Helicopter are working to launch an air taxi service in Dallas-Fort Worth.Īnd before you dismiss the idea as pie in the sky, it's important to note that officials from both companies say they're aiming to get it up and running by 2023.
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