What’s Actually Stopping Air Taxis From Taking Off

From the Travel Tech Podcast newsletter for episode 12, What's Actually Stopping Air Taxis From Taking Off.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, also streaming on Spotify and YouTube.

The US is about to publish rules that let drones fly beyond line of sight routinely. Here's what that unlocks.

Part 108, the FAA's upcoming rulemaking for BVLOS operations, will give operators a clear regulatory path to fly without visual observers for the first time. That changes the economics of commercial drone flight entirely.

In this episode, I speak with Kraettli L. Epperson, co-founder and CEO of Vigilant Aerospace, who has spent years building the detect-and-avoid systems that make this possible. We dig into what Part 108 actually enables, why detect-and-avoid remains the gating technology, and what still needs to happen before drones (and eventually air taxis) can operate safely at scale in shared airspace.

Key Takeaways from the Episode

• Detect-and-Avoid Gap: The absence of standardized, certifiable detect-and-avoid systems remains the primary constraint on scaling autonomous drone operations.
• Regulatory Certainty Effects: Formal rulemaking such as Part 108 enables capital investment by providing stable technical and operational requirements for operators and manufacturers.
• Non-Cooperative Traffic Problem: Low-altitude airspace introduces persistent risk from aircraft without transponders, requiring radar or alternative sensing modalities for safety assurance.
• Data Fusion Architecture Complexity: Effective airspace awareness depends on real-time correlation of heterogeneous inputs including telemetry, ADS-B, radar, and external data feeds.
• Autonomy Safety Dependency: Higher levels of flight autonomy are gated by embedded safety systems capable of real-time conflict detection and resolution without human intervention.

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

Alex Brooker, Host of the Travel Tech Podcast, Founder of Airside Labs