German urban air mobility (UAM) pioneer, Volocopter, conducted a crewed public test flight in front of hundreds of spectators at Incheon Airport in Seoul, South Korea.

The 5-minute flight trial covered approximately 3 kilometres and reached a maximum altitude of 50 metres and a maximum speed of 45 km/h. One week earlier, on 11 November, the air taxi company completed a public test flight at Gimpo International Airport. It was the first-ever crewed public test flight of an electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) air taxi in the Republic of Korea.

Florian Reuter, CEO of Volocopter, said, "We are very excited to have flown our air taxi in South Korea not once, but twice in the last week, which is great to increase public awareness on urban air mobility. As a new mode of transport, air taxis complement the existing mobility solutions and let people reach their destinations faster and more comfortably in megacities such as Seoul."

UAM refers to a new mode of urban transportation that uses eVTOL aircraft to move people or goods within lower urban and suburban airspaces, helping relieve the strain on increasingly congested city roads in a sustainable manner.

As a UAM industry leader, Volocopter's 2011 flight was the first crewed eVTOL flight in aviation history and has developed a family of electrically powered aircraft that can transport passengers (the VoloCity and VoloConnect) and goods (the VoloDrone). It is the first and only eVTOL company globally to have obtained both design and production organisation approvals from European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).