Hong Kong airline aims to transport passengers for 25

Seaplane Hong Kong is looking to the future as it one day aims to transport passengers around the country via drones for as little as $25. The goal is to make hiring a transport drone as easy and painless to do as ordering a car from a ride-sharing service today.

The company hopes to have the drones up and fly before the end of the year, depending on regulatory approval. It isn’t clear what drone the company will be using now, but it seems likely that it will be using EHang’s 216 passenger drone.

The drone transport will allow flights from Hong Kong Central to Kwun Tong and TKO (Tseung Kwan O), cutting down the travel time from 18 minutes to just 6 minutes, a time difference that doesn’t seem a lot, but for future flights that are farther, the time difference will increase.

When talking about his plans for this futuristic transport method, Seaplane Hong Kong CEO Steven Cheung shared:

Seaplane Hong Kong will be providing top-notch aerial transportation services from 2021, subject to regulatory approval. We will be expanding this urban mobility, drones, from Hong Kong Central to Kwun Tong, and then to TKO (Tseung Kwan O), significantly reducing travel time from 18 minutes to six minutes. We will do a trial just before the end of this year. In the beginning, they will be flown with manned pilots, but they are simply there for safety purposes.

A trial will take place later on in the year, with the drones being occupied by trained pilots for a while as a safety precaution, with the end goal to have zero pilots onboard to save money and get to the $25 ticket goal.

Before all of this can happen, the company does need to raise an estimated $13 million to get the drones into the air. Seaplane Hong Kong plans to do this by offering convertible notes while it continues its search for investors and partners. The company is already working with one partner who has shared that its drones are ready to fly and delivered within three months.

Check out the rest of our coverage on the passenger drone market.

Photo: EHang

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