Voom – a year on

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Airbus’s on-demand helicopter booking service Voom has revealed key highlights from its first year of operations.

Since launching its service in São Paulo last year, Voom has expanded into Mexico City and claims to have saved customers more than 10,300 hours on commutes across both regions.

Voom also said that almost half of the its passengers had flown in a helicopter for the first time – with an even 50:50 split of customers flying for personal and business reasons.

Uma Subramanian, CEO of Voom said: “It’s been an incredible journey since we launched in São Paulo a year ago. We are well on our way to understanding the dynamics of urban air mobility — market needs, demographics, preferences, etc.

“We look forward to learning more in year 2 and beyond and, more importantly, providing our passengers with an equally awesome experience as they’ve enjoyed over the past 12 months.”

The services most popular routes are from the helipad in Itaim Bibi in São Paolo to the city’s main airport GRU and from GRU to the São Paulo World Trade Centre. The most popular days for Voom customers to fly are Thursday and Friday, which respectively provide 23% and 26% of each week’s bookings.

Voom was launched last year as part of Airbus’s A^3 programme, an Airbus subsidiary based in Silicon Valley that invests in promising aviation start-ups and entrepreneurs. A^3 is also funding the development of a passenger eVTOL to fly commuters on short-range city flights by 2021.

The Vtol project ‘Vahana’ aims to be a cost-effective alternative to driving and public transport in cities, freeing up congestion. With Airbus securing an on-demand flight-booking service and a passenger Vtol project, the French manufacturer has the ability to launch its own passenger vtol service entirely in-house.

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