Wisk Aero first eVTOL air taxi company to conduct public flights in Los Angeles

Wisk Aero has expand­ed its Los Ange­les AAM oper­a­tions with the region’s first pub­lic air taxi flights since becom­ing the first eVTOL air taxi com­pa­ny to fly in the greater Los Ange­les Area with the launch of test flights at Long Beach Air­port dur­ing its Fes­ti­val of Flight.

The test flights pro­vid­ed the oppor­tu­ni­ty for Wisk to con­duct autonomous flight oper­a­tions in a com­plex, real-world com­mer­cial air­port envi­ron­ment, along­side oth­er pas­sen­ger air­line oper­a­tions.

The com­pa­ny also host­ed the May­or of Long Beach and local and state offi­cials from the Los Ange­les region, includ­ing Orange Coun­ty, and Boe­ing lead­er­ship, for a dis­cus­sion regard­ing the future of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty with­in the region.

Wisk CEO Bri­an Yutko said: “Autonomous flight is pos­si­ble today and it’s hap­pen­ing now in LA. Los Ange­les is a tar­get launch city for many in our indus­try and we are extreme­ly proud to be the first air taxi com­pa­ny to fly here – and to have done so with an autonomous air­craft. We are for­tu­nate to have the part­ner­ship and sup­port of Boe­ing through­out the area. We are thank­ful to Long Beach for its ongo­ing part­ner­ship and sup­port.”

In 2022, the com­pa­ny announced a part­ner­ship with Long Beach through the city’s Long Beach Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship (LBEP). The part­ner­ship is focused on eval­u­at­ing, plan­ning, and imple­ment­ing AAM in Long Beach as part of a broad­er region­al net­work, with a focus on autonomous flight. Most recent­ly, Wisk spon­sored research on the eco­nom­ic impact of AAM for the region, which was con­duct­ed by Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­si­ty, Long Beach.

“I am proud to see the future of flight becom­ing a real­i­ty in Long Beach,” added May­or Rex Richard­son. “I look for­ward to work­ing with Wisk and Boe­ing to cre­ate good jobs and inte­grat­ing a safe, qui­et, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble trans­porta­tion option in Long Beach.”

In July, Wisk com­plet­ed the world’s first pub­lic demon­stra­tion of an autonomous eVTOL fixed-wing air­craft dur­ing EAA Air­Ven­ture in Oshkosh, WI. The flight demon­strat­ed that autonomous, all-elec­tric air taxis are both safe and qui­et, and pro­vid­ed val­ue and learn­ings for the company’s flight and oper­a­tions team.