New VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) aircraft lets you skip the airport

Imagine walking off an airplane and right into your office.

No sitting on the runway waiting for a gate to open before you can unbuckle, make a mad dash to grab your carry-on and then wait your turn to disembark. No breathless hustling through the airport’s seemingly endless terminal before boarding a shuttle for ground transportation and finally flagging a taxi before the inevitable sitting-in-traffic portion of the journey.

Transcend Air wants to eliminate the most frustrating parts of air travel and get passengers where they’re going in a record amount of time. Its aircrafts – after six years of design refinement, they have 15 prototypes– seat approximately six people and are structured around city-to-city flights that are as fast as jets.

Transcend Air's aircrafts will utilize VTOL (Vertical and Takeoff Landing) technology and be as fast as jets.

Peter Schmidt, COO of Transcend Air, entrepreneur and aerobatic pilot (he’s skilled in doing all kinds of fun stuff in the air such as loops and rolls), says that the new airline is in the beginning stages of working with the FAA to meet the guidelines required to be a commercial airline.

Meeting all of the safety requirements can take years, which is why 2024 is the projected launch date of Transcend Air. If all goes as planned, travelers will be able to get from NYC to Boston in 36 minutes, Los Angeles to San Francisco in 55 minutes and Toronto to Montreal in an hour. The company is currently eyeing 46 city center pairs in the US with plans to expand internationally.

Schmidt says the company’s vision is to come down over the water and build landing pads on barges or piers since a city’s business center is often close to the water.

Peter Schmidt, COO, says that the company's vision is to build landing pads on barges and piers — close to city business centers.

Although the aircraft will have the feel of a private charter, it will cost a fraction of what typical private aviation costs. That NYC to Boston leg? Transcend Air anticipates charging just $283.

There's no room for a flight attendant, but coffee will be offered pre-flight.

“The secret,” says Schmidt is “by servicing business travelers city to city, we can fill all those seats in both directions.”

There’s no room for a flight attendant on board, so there won’t be champagne or five-star service on these flights, but there will be coffee and cup holders and, most importantly, no airport necessary. If that isn’t a selling point in and of itself, perhaps you haven’t been to JFK in a while.