Think the skies are crowded now? Just wait

• But as people travel in record numbers, and drones and new types of aircraft take to the skies, managing all that congestion will become more challenging for an air traffic system that's already overextended.

Catch up quick: Companies like Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation and Beta Technologies are preparing to bring electric air taxi services to cities including New York and Los Angeles within a couple of years.

• Air taxis would relieve road congestion, help the environment and make people's lives easier by whisking commuters over traffic in quiet, clean, speedy vehicles, the companies say.
• The new battery-powered aircraft are called eVTOLs — for electric vertical takeoff and landing — and are a mix between a helicopter and plane.
• Multiple electric rotors help them take off and land vertically, but less noisily than a traditional chopper. Once airborne, they fly more like traditional planes.
• They'll have a human pilot initially, but could eventually fly autonomously, with ground-based monitors.

Reality check: It will be years — perhaps even a decade — before large fleets of air taxis are zipping passengers across cities and suburbs.

• "At the very beginning these operations are not going to change the operations of a city," advanced air mobility expert Sergio Cecutta, founder of SMG Consulting, told Axios.
• On-demand air transportation will start slowly in 2026 or 2027, he said, with just a handful of air taxis in operation.
• By the mid-2030s, however, there could be thousands of eVTOLs in the sky, which is why the industry and FAA are working to develop an unmanned traffic management system for urban air mobility.
• "We're not just going to throw more stuff in the same pot and not expect it to overflow," Cecutta said.

The tragedy in D.C. will not upend the industry's path toward innovation, says former acting FAA administrator Billy Nolen, now chief safety officer at Archer.

• "There is no reason to believe this incident will have any impact on the timeline for the FAA to certify eVTOL," he told Axios.
• "What it does reiterate is that we need to make sure we work together to integrate eVTOL into the airspace in a responsible and thoughtful manner."

Zoom in: Reagan National Airport has the country's busiest runway with more than 800 daily takeoffs and landings — about one every minute — on its main strip.

• Military helicopters, sometimes carrying government VIPs, routinely share the air space with passenger planes.

• Last year, despite worries about overcapacity, Congress approved an expansion to Reagan airport, adding five more long-haul daily flights.

By the numbers: While D.C.'s situation is unique, congestion is a problem at many airports.

• There are about 5,000 airports in the U.S., but the vast majority of air traffic flies in and out of 30 major hubs.
• The FAA, which has about 14,000 air traffic controllers, said in October it had hired 1,800 new controllers. But due to attrition and retirements, the net increase was just 36, The Air Current reported.
• They manage more than 45,000 flights a day and up to 5,400 planes in the air at peak times.

Zoom out: Besides commercial jets, private planes and military aircraft, the FAA also has to manage the impact of the growing space industry.

• There were a record 259 rocket launches in 2024 — each one requiring an interruption or redirection of commercial air traffic.
• SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's ambition is 1,000 launches per year.

Drone activity is increasing too, with more than 1.1 million registered commercial and private drones in the United States.

• In Europe, authorities aim to segregate drones from other types of aircraft. But in the U.S., safely integrating them into the national airspace is the FAA's goal.
• The FAA won't directly manage individual drones, though, which is why a drone traffic management system is needed.

What to watch: With all these new aircraft elbowing their way into the airspace, the FAA has a lot of work to do.

Editor's Note: This story has been updated with additional industry comment.