Boeing urges air taxi safety standards be as strict as for commercial jets (updated)

US Aerospace

08/11/2022 21:45

(Adds additional context)
    By Allison Lampert
       MONTREAL, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Boeing Co  BA.N  urged
regulators on Tuesday to subject a new generation of air taxis
to the same strict safety standards as commercial jets, saying
the aircraft designed for short flights on demand should not be
judged on a par with small planes.
    Boeing Chief Strategy Officer Marc Allen's address at the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) marks the U.S.
planemaker's first intervention on such issues in the electric
vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) market.
    "We have to unify around the importance of bringing all
advanced air mobility vehicles and operating systems to market
with airliner levels of safety, with air transport levels of
safety, with commercial levels of safety," he said at ICAO's
Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) Symposium.
    Regulators are coming up with design and operational
requirements for air taxis, which can take off and land
vertically to ferry travelers to airports or on short trips
between cities, allowing them to beat traffic.
    Analysts say certification standards that air taxis must
meet will be make-or-break for many of the new projects vying
for investment. 
    Allen said regulators must approach advanced air mobility on
safety in the same manner as commercial transport since air
taxis fly over crowded urban areas, even though they carry fewer
passengers than commercial jets. 
    Small planes "are not an everyday flight solution for broad
mobility," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the event. "They
are not in heavy, dense usage over urban populations."
    Jetliners are required, for example, to have redundancies on
critical systems that would lead to a catastrophic failure if
they could not function.
        While the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)
already has such requirements for air taxis, it was not clear
whether the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will have
such requirements, consultants and executives said. 
        Advanced air mobility vehicles are generally lumped into
a category for smaller aircraft than jetliners, however projects
can be subject to other criteria.        
  
        "It's kind of case by case," said Charlton Evans, head
of a U.S. aerospace consultancy. 
  
        On Monday, the U.S. regulator issued the certification
blueprint that Joby Aviation  JOBY.N  will need to meet for its
air taxi aircraft.
  
        The FAA was not immediately available for comment.
  
    Redundancy was at the centre of a safety crisis over the 737
MAX that saw the model grounded for almost two years. Boeing has
announced sweeping safety and engineering reforms since the
fatal crashes of two jets that killed a total of 346 people. 
    Allen said global regulators would ideally come up with
common requirements for certifying these aircraft, but
acknowledged that would take time.
   "To us, the more important thing is consensus on commercial
safety standards," he said.
 (Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal. Additional reporting
by David Shepardson in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and
David Gregorio)
 ((Allison.Lampert@thomsonreuters.com; 514-796-4212; Reuters
Messaging: allison.lampert.reuters.com@reuters.net))