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Former FAA Administrator and Delta Board Member Michael Huerta joins Joby Aviation’s Board of Directors

Joby Avi­a­tion has announced the appoint­ment of Michael Huer­ta, the for­mer Admin­is­tra­tor of the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) to the Company’s Board of Direc­tors.

It fol­lows the appoint­ment of Dan Elwell, for­mer Act­ing Admin­is­tra­tor of the FAA, who joined the Company’s Advi­so­ry Board in 2021. It comes as Joby con­tin­ues to make sub­stan­tial progress in cer­ti­fy­ing its air­craft with the FAA for com­mer­cial pas­sen­ger use in 2025.

Huer­ta also serves on the Board of Direc­tors for Delta Air Lines, which announced a mul­ti-year, mul­ti-mar­ket com­mer­cial and oper­a­tional part­ner­ship with Joby in Octo­ber 2022.

JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby, said: “Michael is join­ing our team at a piv­otal time for Joby and the broad­er eVTOL indus­try, and his dual seat on Joby and Delta’s Boards will be invalu­able as we pre­pare for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.

“He has been a strong pro­po­nent of elec­tric air­craft and future avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies, and we’re grate­ful for the pas­sion and depth of expe­ri­ence he brings to our team.”

Huer­ta com­plet­ed a five-year term as FAA Admin­is­tra­tor in 2018, dur­ing which the agency earned an unprece­dent­ed safe­ty record. He pre­vi­ous­ly served as Act­ing FAA Admin­is­tra­tor from 2011 to 2013 and Deputy FAA Admin­is­tra­tor from 2010 to 2011.

Huer­ta is cur­rent­ly a con­sul­tant serv­ing the avi­a­tion and trans­porta­tion indus­tries, and also serves on the Board of Direc­tors of Ver­ra Mobil­i­ty Corp.

Com­ment­ing on his new appoint­ment at Joby, he added: “The Unit­ed States is on the verge of a new era of avi­a­tion, with elec­tric air­craft like Joby’s trans­form­ing how we trav­el. I’ve been impressed by Joby’s lead­er­ship in the sec­tor and look for­ward to sup­port­ing the team as it works toward mak­ing fast and clean every­day flight a real­i­ty.”

Joby is the first eVTOL com­pa­ny to com­plete the first two of five stages in the FAA’s type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process, as well as receive air­wor­thi­ness approval from the U.S. Air Force.

As part of the agree­ment between Joby and Delta, the major air­line in the US made an up-front equi­ty invest­ment in Joby of $60 mil­lion, with a total invest­ment of up to $200 mil­lion pos­si­ble based on the achieve­ment of mutu­al­ly agreed progress mile­stones.

Com­ment­ing on Huerta’s appoint­ment, Delta CEO Ed Bas­t­ian said: “Joby and Delta are pio­neer­ing a ground­break­ing new way to trav­el. Michael’s avi­a­tion expe­ri­ence is a tremen­dous ben­e­fit to both com­pa­nies as we work to deeply inte­grate our two ser­vices to make book­ing trav­el eas­i­er, the end-to-end jour­ney more seam­less, and to deliv­er cus­tomers max­i­mum time sav­ings.”

Joby has con­tin­ued to build its Board of Direc­tors with unri­valed indus­try exper­tise. In addi­tion to Huer­ta, the Company’s Board mem­bers include Reid Hoff­man, co-founder of LinkedIn and a Part­ner at Grey­lock; Aicha Evans, CEO of Zoox; Dr. James Kuffn­er, CEO and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Direc­tor of Woven Plan­et Hold­ings, and a Mem­ber of the Board of Direc­tors and Oper­at­ing Offi­cer of Toy­ota; Dipen­der Salu­ja, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Capri­corn Invest­ment Group; Hal­imah DeLaine Pra­do, Gen­er­al Coun­sel of Google; and Lau­ra Wright, for­mer CFO of South­west.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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