German air taxi developer Lilium has announced a pair of deals providing it a foothold in China to build future business activity in what’s expected to be an enormous and effervescent market for advanced air mobility (AAM) services.
The Munich-based company announced the developments against the background of this week’s Paris Air Show. One of those accords was made with Shenzhen Eastern General Aviation Co., known as Heli-Eastern, which provides helicopter transportation services in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Under the terms of the deal, Heli-Eastern will buy up to 100 Lilium battery-powered jets to enable new air taxi and other AAM activities.
The other is an agreement with the Bao’an District of the bustling business city Shenzhen, where Lilium will establish an office to oversee development of air taxi operations in the same Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Those facilities are also intended to serve as a base camp for the company’s efforts to launch AAM services in other municipalities and regions of China.
Read: Cash-tight Lilium fetes eVTOL deals with upper-crust AAM clients
Its offices in the Bao’an District will meanwhile allow Lilium to provide sales, servicing, and assistance support to Heli-Eastern as it introduces air taxi operations using the company’s AAM craft.
“By partnering with Lilium, we are bringing the future of sustainable air mobility to China,” said Heli-Eastern chairman Zhao Qi. “With Lilium’s premium cabin design and innovative electric jet technology, our customers can travel throughout the Greater Bay Area and beyond quickly and sustainably.”
Lilium’s fixed presence through its the Bao’an District unit will also seek to promote ever increasing use of its jets to provide the Greater Bay’s 86 million residents with less expensive and quieter air options to helicopters.
“We are thrilled to be entering China with such a strong partner – the Bao’an District,” said Lilium CEO Klaus Roewe. “Fast, comfortable, and sustainable transport will strongly contribute to the region’s development. We are grateful for the commitment and engagement the Bao’an District is offering.”
But he added the importance of that local link-up establishing Lilium’s permanent presence to the company’s objectives of marketing its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxis across what may become the largest AAM market in the world.
“China represents an enormous opportunity for the eVTOL industry,” Roewe said, projecting the size of that AAM activity to “amount to as much as 25% of the (global) market.”
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