SEINE DECISION

Flying Taxis Miss Out on Olympic Debut in Paris

Drone-style taxis had been due to take off from a barge in the river during the Games.

The world’s first flying taxi service will not be making its debut at the Paris Olympic Games. The consortium behind the project—which uses an aircraft with 18 drone-style rotors—had been planning its first public flights this week from a barge on the river Seine. But the German manufacturer Volocopter and its French partners admitted Thursday they had not yet got full certification. Passenger-less flights will instead be made from an aerodrome to the west of Paris near the Chateau de Versailles. “We are a little disappointed, but in any case we had said that we would not make any compromises with security,” said Edward Arkwright, deputy CEO of the French airport operator ADP. Volocopter itself blamed the delay on an American supplier not delivering what it had promised. The taxis are designed to carry a pilot and passenger and could be used to ferry people from city centers to suburban airports. They have not been without their critics, with one Paris city official slamming the whole idea as “a totally useless, hyper-polluting gimmick for a few ultra-privileged people in a hurry.”