Fully electric “flying vehicles” could join Paris’ transport network “within five years”, according to the French capital's public operator RATP.

RATP, which manages Paris' bus, train, and underground services, is teaming up with Airbus, the European aerospace giant, to "explore the feasibility of urban air mobility services" in the City of Lights and the wider Paris area, the groups announced in a statement.

"Airbus is developing demonstrators of autonomous and unmanned technologies," said the company's chief executive Guillaume Faury.

"This is not science-fiction anymore, it is fact. Today we have all the technical tools. But they have to be integrated into everyday life without jeopardising our priority, which is safety," he added.

Matthieu Dunant head of innovation at RATP, said they were looking into “how we can use existing infrastructures, such as overground RER stations, to which we could add what we call a ‘vertiport,’ which can house such flying vehicles".

“We are working on each of the building bricks and we can imagine that the full solution will be ready within five years,” he told France Inter radio.

The current prototype, he said, looked "like a mixture between a helicopter and a small plane but above all one should bear in mind that it is entirely electric, so totally clean from an energy point of view".