Air taxis, drones and space for other airy business models: With a new business incubator, the city of Ingolstadt wants to accelerate its plans to develop into a hub for autonomous aviation. The facility called “brigkAIR” will open at Manching Airport on Friday. It is intended to support start-ups in the field of “three-dimensional mobility” and bring them together with companies from military and civil aviation. Due to the possible uses of the airfield, the start-up center in this form is “unique in Europe”, according to the operator. “If you want to go into the air with prototypes, you need a larger airspace,” says Managing Director Franz Glatz. Access to this will be offered to start-ups in the future.
Companies in and around Ingolstadt are already working on autonomous missiles. Airbus, for example, is testing its air taxi in Manching, the latest prototype of which is scheduled to take off for the first time in the coming year. And with AutoFlight, competition from China has been in town for a few months. It actually depends on Audi, the carmaker has been a reliable job guarantor for decades. But in view of the transformation in the auto industry and the associated problems, the town hall began to rethink “what strengths we still have”, as Ingolstadt’s economics officer Georg Rosenfeld once put it at an Airbus event. In the hope of “the jobs of the future”, the city is therefore also taking part in an initiative led by the aircraft manufacturer to advance the development of electric air traffic.
From this point of view, the “brigkAIR” is now the next building block in Ingolstadt’s plans to emancipate itself at least a little from car production on the one hand, and to sharpen the profile as a location on the other. The question is always, says Glatz: “Why should a start-up settle in Ingolstadt?” The opening on Friday should therefore also be understood as a “surcharge” to get more partners on board. Six start-ups will be there at the start, four of which will initially only switch to Manching virtually, for example for test flights. The Free State supported the establishment of the center with 4.8 million euros. The first digital start-up center in the region, the “brigk” on the former foundry site on the banks of the Danube, will remain next to it – and will also be open to business ideas without drones.