Now you can take a helicopter ride in Bengaluru to avoid traffic chaos

The skyscape of Bengaluru is going to change very soon. Urban air mobility company Blade has said it will launch a helicopter flight service between Bangalore International Airport and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) airport, which will be available five working days a week from Monday – Friday. The service will be launched on October 10. Bengaluru, which is India’s IT hotspot, is already one of the most traffic-congested cities in the world.

As per the company, the intra-city service will help commuters save time as the flight will take then 12 minutes instead of the two-hour commute to the city by road. HAL has been chosen as the pickup spot as it is very close to popular locations in the city, such as Indiranagar and Koramangala, as well as IT parks. The flights can be booked like any other air ticket at an initial cost of Rs 3,250, excluding taxes. In comparison, a cab will charge you around Rs 1,300 from the international airport to HAL airport, and would almost take two hours or sometimes more depending on the traffic flow.

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The flights will be available at 9 am from Bengaluru airport to HAL, and the evening return flight will be at 4.15 pm.

“Our success lies in being able to democratise urban air mobility. While helicopter services are a premium product, with today’s launch we can offer an accessible entry point,” said Amit Dutta, managing director, BLADE India.

The company has said that more routes will be added once they launch the services. Whitefield and Electronic City can be the next spots for the future.

According to a report by Research Dive, the global urban air mobility market is projected to register a revenue of $30,740 million and grow at a 30.2 per cent CAGR between 2022 and 2031. The report has highlighted that the air taxis sub-segment is anticipated to hold a dominant market share and grow immensely during the analysis years mainly due to the rising demand for travelling to work and transporting goods using electric vehicle takeoff and landing aircraft. Some significant market players in this sector are Volocopter GmbH, Bell Textron, Lilium Gmbh, Wisk Aero LLC, Archer Aviation, Workhorse Group Inc., Ehang, Joby Aviation, Kitty Hawk, Airbus, among others.