Virgin Atlantic will start test flight of Vertical’s eVTOL from LHR in 2024

Leading aviation companies have teamed up to work on bringing air taxi services to the United Kingdom, with Virgin Atlantic set to operate test flights of Vertical Aerospace’s eVTOL aircraft in 2024.

The consortium, which comprises engineering consultancy Atkins, Virgin Atlantic, Vertical Aerospace, the vertiport developer Skyports, and the main UK air navigation service provider NATS, announced on July 18, 2022, that it has received funding of £9.5 million ($11 million) from the UK government under the Future Flight Challenge.

The Advanced Mobility Ecosytem consortium plans to demonstrate how air taxis can work in commercial operations via two physical flight tests and a single simulation flight. The first two test flights will be made with Vertical Aerospace’s emission-free VX4 eVTOL aircraft, which will be operated by British air carrier Virgin Atlantic. The first flight is expected to take off from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) with a touchdown in the Living Lab vertiport built by Skyports, while the second test will take place between Bristol Airport (BRS) to an airfield in Southwest England.