Recommendations for emerging air taxi network operations based on online review analysis of helicopter services

The effects of traffic congestion are adverse, primarily including air pollution, commuter stress, an increase in vehicle operating costs, and accidents on road. In efforts to alleviate these problems in metropolitan cities, logistics companies plan to introduce a new Urban Air Mobility (UAM) service called air taxis. These are electric-powered vehicles that would be tested and operated in the forthcoming years by international transportation companies like Airbus, Uber, and Kitty Hawk. Since these flying taxis are an emerging mode of transportation, it is necessary to provide recommendations for initial design, implementation, and operation. This study proposes managerial insights for these upcoming UAM services by analyzing online customer reviews and conducting an internal assessment of helicopter operations. Helicopters are similar to air taxis in regards to their vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) operations, and therefore, customer reviews pertaining to the former can enable us to obtain insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the short-distance aviation service, in general. A four-stage sequential approach is used in this research, wherein online reviews are mined in Stage 1, analyzed using bigram and trigram models in Stage 2, 7S internal assessment is conducted for helicopter services in Stage 3, and managerial recommendations for air taxis are proposed in Stage 4. The insights obtained in this paper could assist any air taxi company in providing better customer service when they venture into the market.