In this report, we build on our 2023 UK Advanced Air Mobility study (“AAM Paper”) and use a year of BT’s anonymised and aggregated Origin Destination travel data as a proxy for real-world journeys. We use the AAM Paper’s socioeconomic outputs and new geospatial analytics to test, route by route, whether the viable eVTOL use cases from the AAM Paper are likely to replace current travel modes.
Our findings are clear. At the AAM Paper’s peak 2040 eVTOL adoption assumption of 5%, we find no viable routes. One route becomes viable only at a much higher 17% adoption rate. At an intentionally unrealistic 100% adoption rate, 205 routes are viable, representing only 0.05% of total weekly person-trips.
Note that our analysis is substitution-only, so does not model any incremental demand that eVTOLs could generate. Otherwise, the modelling uses assumptions that are favourable to eVTOL. These include optimistic aircraft costs, idealised vertiport locations, short access walks, limited weather and utilisation impacts, balanced two-way demand, no deadheading and no drag from implementation barriers such as public perception, infrastructure or regulation.
The conclusion is not that eVTOL has no role in the UK. It is that there should be a focus on identifying niche, geographically specific use cases, which may include helicopter replacement and selected premium or connectivity-led routes. This suggests that eVTOL effort should be commensurate with these smaller volume opportunities, rather than with eVTOL as a mass-market solution for UK passenger transport.
The report also updates our view of the AAM ecosystem and the main implementation challenges: perception, infrastructure, safety and security, technology, regulation, skills and business models. These challenges remain material and, in several areas, look more difficult than they did in 2023.
Key findings
- 0 viable routes at the AAM Paper’s peak 2040 adoption assumption of 5%
- 1 viable route at a much higher 17% adoption rate
- 205 viable routes only under an intentionally unrealistic 100% adoption sensitivity
- Those 205 routes represent only 0.05% of total weekly person-trips
- eVTOL is likely to be a transport niche, not a backbone, in the UK
Read the full report
Does eVTOL fly in the UK?
