Tampa International Airport CEO Michael Stephens is looking to connect the region through flying taxis.
At a Pinellas County Commission meeting this week, Stephens said the airport wants to be the "epicenter" of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircrafts.
They're looking to potentially recreate the first commercial air flight, when Tony Jannus flew a Benoist Airboat Type XIV No. 43 from St. Petersburg to Tampa in 1914.
This time, it would be with a flying car.
"We have a volume of people that comes across all of our bridges from Pinellas to Hillsborough and back and forth," he said. "We have to lean into how do we connect this region on a number of modalities? That is something in my role that I'm leaning into very heavily right now."
"These things are coming very quickly, and what we are looking to do is potentially recreate the first commercial flight that happened from St. Petersburg with Tony Jannus over to Tampa, but this time using eVTOL."Michael Stephens, Tampa International Airport CEO
This comes after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation allowing the Florida Department of Transportation to pay 100% of the project costs for a public vertiport if federal money is unavailable, according to the News Service of Florida. Vertiports are hubs for short aerial commutes for the battery-powered aircraft.
The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration introduced the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program to deploy advanced air mobility vehicles. Florida is one of the leading states for this program. The overall goal is to speed up new aircraft technology in the country.
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According to the DOT, Florida is involved in a "statewide effort featuring multiple industry partners" and will include three phases of operations focused on cargo delivery, passenger transportation, automation and medical response, supported by significant public and private investment."
DeSantis and Florida Transportation Secretary Jared Perdue have announced plans for a test facility in Polk County that will include two vertiports. They've discussed the possibility of the technology reducing traffic congestion along the Interstate 4 corridor, according to the News Service of Florida.
Stephens I-4 between Orlando and Tampa is where a "lot of the leadership and magic is going to happen."
"FAA has just essentially said that about six states are going to be at the forefront of developing this technology, how it works, routes — all those types of things," Stephens said. "Florida is going to be the epicenter of that, if not at the tip of the spear."
However, there's also been extensive talk about how to connect airports in the Tampa Bay region. One example is Peter O. Knight Airport on Davis Islands to St. Petersburg's Albert Whitted Airport.
"That is a great, great opportunity for us. It's a straight line-of-sight type of point of departure," Stephens said. "There's lots of volume, so that's probably going to be one of our first connective points here in the region, and we are absolutely talking about."
That's the trajectory officials are looking at for an eVTOL demo. But eventually, they plan to have more "multimodal facilities" with the advanced technology.
According to a presentation to the Pinellas County Commission, more than 18,500 passengers are going and coming from Pinellas every day. In addition, the county contributes more than a quarter of Tampa International Airport's total traffic.
ALSO READ: Seeing the sky full of electric air taxis in Florida may be a 'little further down the road'
On "Florida Matters Live & Local," Albert Whitted Airport manager Richard J. Lesniak also mentioned the goal of eVTOLs providing intra-city transportation. He mentioned eventually having a route from Albert Whitted to Tampa International Airport.
The city of St. Petersburg had also formed a task force to look into advanced air mobility and how it should be integrated.
As progress continues, Lesniak said there's still lots of work to be done as operators need to get certification by the FAA to fly, and more.
"I don't think by the end of this year you're going to see the sky full of air taxis," Lesniak said. "I think that's still a little further down the road."
Overall, it's not the first time Tampa has had involvement with eVTOLs. Back in 2023, Tampa International hosted the first successful flight of an eVTOL at a large U.S. airport. It was an eight-minute test flight in which an air taxi flew up into the sky above the airfield.
And in 2022, the airport launched a committee to look into how the technology could be used throughout the region.
