Up in the Air: Dubai’s Air-Taxi Service

The case describes the air-taxi industry at the end of 2023 as many companies vied to join the “eVTOL revolution”: in January 2022 the Vertical Flight Society listed 600 designs from nearly 350 companies and innovators worldwide, although only about two dozen of the 600 concepts had made it to the flying-prototype stage. The industry was enabled by the convergence of technologies (including advances in electric propulsion, lightweight materials, AI, autonomous flight systems and batteries), propelled by unexpected social and geopolitical events that pushed the boundaries of drone and electric-proportion technologies. As a result of such advances, and fuelled by growing interest in the space on the part of the VC community, the global flying taxi market was valued by one analyst at around USD 3 billion in 2022 and was expected to be worth around USD 37 billion by 2032, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.9% from 2023 to 2032.