BlackBird on-demand air service to take flight with electric planes

Open the app for BlackBird, an on-demand aviation marketplace that’s been called the Uber of air travel, and you can book flights from the Bay Area to cities like Burbank, Palm Springs and Las Vegas.

The interface operates like any trip-booking app until you’ve selected your date and destination. Then, BlackBird prompts you to either join an existing flight or create your own by choosing an aircraft and departure time. For $408, you can fly a three-seater, single-engine Cirrus SR22 from Oakland to Tahoe City, leaving roughly whenever you’d like and arriving an hour later.

“For decades, businesses have rented planes and hired pilots to fly them,” says BlackBird CEO and founder Rudd Davis. “BlackBird uses technology to make this capability accessible to everyone.”

Prices for that privilege vary tremendously. Through the app, you can fly from Oakland to Burbank in June for $89. If you want to go to Palm Springs, a one-way seat starts at $4,141.

In May, the San Francisco company announced a new partnership that may lower that rate. BlackBird has agreed to purchase more than 100 electric airplanes from Bye Aerospace that will join its network of more than 600 aircraft and 1,000 commercial pilots. The Denver manufacturer is developing allelectric airplanes as well as drones powered by solarelectric propulsion.

“BlackBird is on a mission to make flying the next step in personal transportation, and to do this, flying needs to be as affordable as driving,” Davis says. “Electrification reduces the cost of flying below that of driving a gaspowered car.”

That’s because electric motors are extremely efficient. As engineer and entrepreneur Paul Touw told The Chronicle last year, based on data from the U.S. Department of Energy and Uber, an electric airplane could make a 50-mile trip at a 10% lower price per passenger than a standard bus — and in a third of the time.

“This partnership will provide more flight options for cheaper,” Davis said of the Bye Aerospace deal. “If you could be in Tahoe in 45 minutes for $25, why would you ever choose to drive?”

Bye is hardly the only player in the electric aircraft market. More than 100 companies are working to design battery-powered planes — including Boeing, Airbus, Google and Uber. Rewrites to the Federal Aviation Administration’s Part 23 regulations, which govern small planes, have paved the way for approval of electric aircraft, and Bye’s two-seat eFlyer 2 has started the FAA certification process. The company’s fourseat eFlyer 4 is expected to follow. Davis estimates that the planes may be certified and ready to start carrying BlackBird passengers by the end of the year.

“BlackBird is on a mission to make flying the next step in personal transportation, and to do this, flying needs to be as affordable as driving. Electrification reduces the cost of flying below that of driving a gas-powered car.” Rudd Davis, BlackBird CEO and founder

Bye Aerospace BlackBird has agreed to buy more than 100 eFlyer electric airplanes from Bye Aerospace.