Maud Descamps edited by Gauthier Delomez 07:30, April 27, 2022

From fiction to reality: England inaugurated on Monday the very first vertical airport in the world which will welcome flying vehicles.

With France, the two countries are the European leaders in this field.

Europe 1 explains the issues around this new type of revolutionary infrastructure.

Low altitude aviation, that is to say less than 300 meters from the ground, is the sector on which manufacturers are betting for the next few years.

England this week inaugurated the world's first vertical airport in Coventry, near Birmingham in the center of the country.

Called Air-one, it will accommodate flying vehicles.

In reality in Europe, England and France are the two leaders in terms of vertical airports.

>> Find Europe Matin in replay and podcast here

The objective of these revolutionary infrastructures is to accommodate both flying taxis for transport, for example businessmen who want to reach Roissy airport from La Défense in just a few minutes, even if "it will remain a niche market", warns a specialist in the sector.

Valuable help in the medical field

Above all, there will be a big market for drones that will transport goods.

Some are already doing it, particularly in the medical field, as explained by Joyce Abou-Moussa, of the Paris airport group.

“It was the Covid that really triggered these use cases with the transport of blood tests and Covid kits with drone operators with whom we work, particularly in Île-de-France, to clear these markets and these new uses", she says at the microphone of Europe 1. In the future, these drones could transport organs for urgent transplants or even defibrillators. 

Several vertical airports should see the light of day in France.

There is already one in Pontoise, in the Val-d'Oise.

Industrialists in the sector are counting on releases by 2030 until a regulatory framework, in particular an "aviation code", is put in place.