Khan faces calls to make London third launch city of Uber’s flying taxi programme

London mayor Sadiq Khan is being urged to nominate the capital as the third city in the world to take part in Uber’s eye-catching flying taxi programme.

UberAIR, as it will be known, has already picked Dallas and Los Angeles as its first two potential launch cities, and now City Hall is under pressure to decide whether to bid for the programme to come to London.

Kulveer Ranger, former director for transport policy under mayor Boris Johnson, said that the city should seriously look into the viability of innovative programmes like UberAIR.

Read more: Uber signs deal with Nasa to help develop flying taxis

“It’s about exploring things that should be good for London, and it’s what this mayor should do,” he told City A.M. “If there’s a current issue with an organisation like Uber, that shouldn’t fog a vision for London in the future.

“It does look like flying vehicles are something that companies are seriously looking at, and London should be considering what the implications could be.”

Keith Prince, Conservative member of the London Assembly, said the concept was a “very good idea” as he called on City Hall to push the government to devolve more power to regional authorities to regulate airspace and open the door to the technology in the capital.

“There’s hardly anything on future transport in the mayor’s strategy, and we said the mayor needs to be aware of all these things and pressing government for the powers to pass by-laws to regulate by region,” he explained.

“Khan needs to push for overarching powers for legislation to devolve powers to regions so they can legislate according to their own needs.”

City Hall declined to comment on whether it would be bidding for London to become an UberAIR launch city.