The 2021 Asian Air Passenger Urban Air Mobility In Perspective report states, 'The Asia-Pacific region is a key market for UAM and for premium transportation modes in markets like China, India, Singapore, and South Korea that have significant concentrations of dollar millionaires and notoriously heavy road traffic.'

Indeed, according to a recently-released report by global bank HSBC, in eight years, over 13% of Singapore’s adult population will be worth $1 million or more, surpassing the proportion of millionaires in the US, China, and 12 other Asia-Pacific economies.

By 2030, the bank predicts that only 8.8% of U.S. adults and 4.4% of Chinese adults will be millionaires. Among Asian economies, Australia will come in second to Singapore with around 12.5% of its adult population as millionaires by that time, and Hong Kong will come in third with 11.1%.

One such company eyeing the region is Volocopter, the German company that’s building its own range of all-electric aircraft – the VoloCity, VoloDrone, Voloconnect as well as its own urban air mobility (UAM) ecosystem – and working to get its eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft certified and ready to fly by 2024.

With 500 staff employed currently in Bruchsal, Munich and Singapore, it is eyeing two global launches – Paris during the Olympics and Singapore, from where it intends to expand to other Asian markets.

Yeoh Siew Hoon catches up with Hon Lung Chu, head of APAC, to find out what’s going on behind the scenes to get this ambitious plan into the air and change the way we move about as locals and as travellers.

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