Rotorcraft giant Airbus Helicopters has announced that it will suspend development of its flagship CityAirbus eVTOL platform in 2026.
At a company press briefing held on January 27th, Chief Executive Bruno Even told aviation reporters that the underlying technologies required to make eVTOL operations commercially viable – namely battery capabilities – had not yet attained the prerequisite level of developmental maturity. Although Airbus will continue to perform test flights of its demonstrator through 2025, plans to commercialize the platform have been postponed indefinitely pending the further evolution of key inputs and architectures.
Despite the advancing maturity of the UAM segment’s infrastructural and manufacturing base and rising attainment of critical demonstrator testing milestones by many companies, the latter half of 2024 has also been characterized by significant corporate instability. The Airbus announcement follows on the heels of major UAM startups such as Lilium and Volocopter falling into insolvency as they struggled to translate their costly and ongoing developmental efforts into a viable strategy for commercialization.
