[drpixie]

Minimal traffic? An ATPL pilot here. Fly into any major airport and you'll see that it can be REALLY BUSY. The system is based around separation down to about 1 minute. Major airfields are all traffic limited (hence "slots").

1 minute might seem like a lot when you're walking or driving, but when coming in at 200mph in something that weights hundreds of tons ... I want that guy 1 minute ahead of me off the runway ;)

And that's considering that existing traffic is of similar speed and ability. Adding slow, small, low-performance aircraft to the mix makes things very interesting ;( Then add low-experience pilots who have to stop and think about procedures, actions, radio calls ...

permission to back their car out of their driveway - It might be different if those cars cost $100M-$300M. A tiny bingle is very expensive.

[moffkalast]

True I suppose, and it's not like we're on the verge of any new energy density tech that would make personal VTOLs viable either so runways might be the bottleneck that keeps throughput constrained for the foreseeable future I guess. Although you can always build more of them :)