IndiGo Ventures has made a strategic equity investment in Sarla Aviation, which Sarla has called “the first step towards building India’s first nationwide air taxi network”.
“Imagine arriving at Bengaluru airport and instead of defaulting to a long road transfer, being able to connect onward to a vertiport closer to your final destination,” the company said in a LinkedIn post. “Or picture a business traveller in Mumbai stepping off a flight at the international airport and reaching the commercial district in minutes instead of sitting through an hour of traffic. A patient in Pune needing urgent specialist care in Mumbai — airborne and at the hospital before a road ambulance has cleared city limits.” The investment will be used to help realise such use cases.
“This investment unites India’s leading eVTOL OEM with its largest airline into what the country has never had: an aligned OEM-operator ecosystem building toward certified, commercial air-taxi operations at national scale,” Sarla Aviation said.
The company has also signed a partnership agreement with Cochin International Airport (CIAL) Limited to evaluate the integration of vertiport infrastructure within or adjacent to Kochi Airport. Rather than building isolated air taxi routes, the vision is to integrate advanced air mobility directly into existing airport infrastructure, regulatory systems and commercial frameworks.
Sarla Aviation and CIAL will identify suitable land and elevated vertiport locations within or adjacent to the airport campus; develop route planning and operational feasibility assessments for priority corridors; design a commercial vertiport facility; and evaluate phased deployment aligned with regulatory and infrastructure readiness.
Potential future corridors could connect Kochi Airport with Kochi city, Munnar, Alleppey, Kovalam, Sabarimala, Thrissur, and other strategic destinations across the state — serving leisure, medical, and pilgrimage travel.
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Image: Sarla Aviation