Indian cities may operate air taxis sooner than we think

Last month, a travel blogger’s viral post highlighted Bengaluru’s traffic woes. She was still stuck on the road after dropping a friend to the airport, while the friend had already landed in Dubai. The post sparked fresh conversation about the city’s gridlock. With commutes like this, is it time to look beyond road transport for faster, smarter ways to travel?

According to Adrian Schmidt, Co-founder and CEO of Sarla Aviation, the answer is yes, and urgently so.

“You don’t need to be a transport analyst to know Bengaluru’s mobility is broken, you just need to live here,” says Schmidt.

“The roads aren’t just congested, they’re saturated. More flyovers won’t solve it. The ground is done. The only direction left is up.”

Sarla Aviation, headquartered in the southern Indian city Bengaluru, is an urban air mobility start-up. The company made headlines earlier this year when it unveiled Shunya, a full scale six-seater electric flying taxi at the Bharat Mobility Expo 2025 in Delhi, introducing what could become a new layer of city transport.

Named in honour of Sarla Thukral, India’s first woman pilot, the start-up addresses India’s need for practical and accessible aviation built to serve more people, not just a few.

“What makes Shunya truly unique is that it’s built from the ground up for India’s real mobility needs,” Schmidt tells GN Focus.

“Not as a retrofit of Western designs, but as a native solution to a deeply local problem.”

Shunya seats six passengers plus a pilot, carries up to 680kg, and has a rear luggage compartment. It’s designed to turn 90-minute road commutes into 15-minute flights, cruising at around 160 km per hour. The cabin, he says, is modular, sustainable, and made for everything from daily commuting to cargo runs and emergency medical use.

While air taxis may still seem far off for many, Sarla Aviation is working to make them feel as familiar as an app ride, especially on cost.

When asked about the fare for a common Bengaluru route – airport to MG Road – Schmidt says, “Kempegowda Airport to MG Road is about 36 kilometres and takes over 90 minutes by car during rush hour. With Sarla, that becomes a 12-minute hop with a typical fare somewhere around Rs2,000-2,500 (Dh85–100). That’s in line with Uber Black or an executive cab.”

The pricing is competitive. Sarla wants to ease travel in congested Indian cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Delhi, and Pune, making air mobility as simple and straightforward as using a ride-hailing app, and that includes affordability and ease of access.

The company is also building an interactive route map to help users estimate fares and flight durations in real-time.

Schmidt co-founded Sarla Aviation in 2023 with Rakesh Gaonkar. Both had earlier worked in Germany’s automotive sector before joining eVTOL company Lilium. In 2024, Shivam Chauhan joined the team after a stint at global flying taxi firm Joby Aviation.

All three bring strong engineering backgrounds and a shared belief that India is where the next phase of mobility will take shape.

“I moved to India because I believe it’s the most consequential place on earth for the 21st century,” Schmidt says.

“If you want to spend your life building something meaningful which truly moves humanity forward, you need to be where the future is still being written. For me, that place was India.”

Today, Sarla’s engineering team includes former employees of Tesla, Joby, Volocopter and more ¬ all now focused on building something local, affordable and fast to deploy.

“The fact that our team pulled off a full-scale prototype in under a year is remarkable,” Schmidt says.

“When we unveiled Shunya at Bharat Mobility Expo, it was about making a statement and shifting expectations that the future of air mobility can and should be built in India, for India.”

Sarla is now in the R&D and pre-certification phase. Ground and tethered flight tests will begin first, followed by supervised demos in 2026. Certification will be done in collaboration with India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA). A phased roll out is planned for 2028.

“We’re not retrofitting air mobility onto a car-centric city. We’re designing routes natively using heat maps, drone corridors, and GIS,” Schmidt says.

“Our vertiport strategy is hyper-local, such as malls, office parks, hospitals, and rooftops.”

The company is working with Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) and infrastructure development company, Makmor, to enhance accessibility across the city.

It’s not just about commuting. One of Sarla’s first services will be a free air ambulance.

“We believe that air mobility shouldn’t just serve the elite, it should serve emergencies,” Schmidt says. “If there’s a way to save time in a medical emergency, there’s a way to save lives.”

In early 2025, Sarla raised $12 million (Dh44 million) in a Series A round led by Accel, with participation from investors Nikhil Kamath, Sriharsha Majety, and Binny Bansal.

“This capital is fueling our technological advancements, enabling robust R&D, and preparing us for production scale-up. Right now, we’re building our half-scale demonstrator, which proves out the most critical subsystems for our full-scale, certifiable aircraft.”

The company is getting ready for its next funding round as it shifts from prototype to production.

“We’re also hiring across engineering, certification, operations, and advanced testing, and actively building strategic partnerships to push Sarla forward as the leader in urban air mobility,” he says.

Schmidt is aware of the doubts that come with any frontier tech, especially after several high-profile attempts in this space have failed.

“We’re not adapting a Swiss prototype for Indian conditions, we’re building from the ground up, in India, for India,” he says.

“That gives us an edge on both affordability and adaptability.”

Sarla Aviation has also brought on Rajiv Bansal, former Secretary of Civil Aviation and ex-MD of Air India, to help handle regulatory coordination as they begin working with airports and city authorities.

That viral airport post on Bengaluru wasn’t just about frustration, it showed how limited road mobility has become in fast-growing Indian cities. With a working prototype, a clear launch path and a team that’s building for India, Sarla Aviation may be one of the first to offer a real alternative.

As Schmidt puts it: “If you can book a cab, you can book a Sarla.”