<\/p>\n

\n
• \n
  \u2018You\u2019re going to see rapid progress here,\u2019 Muilenburg says<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/li>\n
• \u00a0Company is also working with regulators on air-traffic system<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

   <\/p>\n

  B<\/span>oeing<\/strong> Co. says the age of air taxis is getting closer. A prototype will be in the air next year, Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said. The planemaker is also working with regulators to develop a traffic management system for the aircraft in five years.<\/p>\n

  \u201cThink about a future in which you will have three-dimensional highways to relieve traffic congestion,\u2019\u2019 Muilenburg said in an interview Wednesday with Bloomberg TV in Seattle. \u201cSo we\u2019re working on both the ecosystem — the regulatory framework — and the new vehicles. All of that is happening now.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

  The Chicago-based aerospace giant is investing heavily in a vision that evokes the futuristic world of \u201cThe Jetsons,\u201d the 1960s-era cartoon show. Pilotless rotorcraft will eventually ferry people and cargo across clogged urban areas, Muilenburg said. To hasten that goal, the company last year\u00a0bought<\/a>\u00a0drone pioneer Aurora Flight Sciences, which is among the companies vying to develop a flying taxi with Uber Technologies Inc.<\/p>\n

  Rapid Progress\u2019<\/h3>\n

  Boeing is also working with a startup called\u00a0SparkCognition<\/a>and U.S. regulators to design an air-traffic system to keep the aerial vehicles safe and operating efficiently, Muilenburg said. He didn\u2019t specify if the prototypes would be pilotless right away.<\/p>\n

  \u201cI would expect that within five years we\u2019ll see initial operational capability being fielded,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to see rapid progress here over the next several years and you\u2019re going to see Boeing with our partners right at the forefront.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

  Boeing is also working on a hypersonic aircraft capable of zipping passengers between any two cities in the world in a couple of hours. The engine technology is \u201cin hand,\u201d he said. The main sticking point is to ensure there would be enough paying customers to make the investment pay off.<\/p>\n

  \u201cThis is something again I expect to see happen over the next decade,\u201d he said, \u201cso a little bit longer time frame.\u201d<\/p>\n

  .<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u2018You\u2019re going to see rapid progress here,\u2019 Muilenburg says \u00a0Company is also working with regulators on air-traffic system   Boeing Co. says the age of air taxis is getting closer. A prototype will be in the air next year, Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg said. The planemaker is also working with regulators to develop…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9262,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,2,8,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12153"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12154,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12153\/revisions\/12154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}