Lilium, UrbanV and Aéroports de la Côte d’Azur to create Regional Air Mobility network in French Riveria by 2026

Lil­i­um, UrbanV and Aéro­ports de la Côte d’Azur (ACA) have announced plans to bring Lil­i­um Jet flights to the South of France start­ing in 2026.

A new net­work will con­nect the French Riv­iera with key des­ti­na­tions through­out South­ern France, includ­ing Mona­co, Nice, Cannes, Golfe de Saint-Tropez, Aix-en-Provence and Mar­seille.

As the first part­ner­ship of its kind in the region, this col­lab­o­ra­tion aims to estab­lish and oper­ate eVTOL air­craft between a net­work of ver­ti­ports includ­ing Nice Côte d’Azur air­port — the sec­ond-largest air­port in France, trans­port­ing over 14 mil­lion trav­ellers per year — togeth­er with Cannes Man­delieu air­port and Golfe de Saint-Tropez air­port.

Franck Gold­nadel, Chair­man of the Board, Aéro­ports de la Côte d’Azur, said: “This col­lab­o­ra­tion with Lil­i­um togeth­er with our sub­sidiary UrbanV marks an impor­tant step in the trans­for­ma­tion and decar­boniza­tion of region­al air mobil­i­ty. Our ter­ri­to­ry offers a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to fly over the sea to direct­ly con­nect the main eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al or tourist des­ti­na­tions.

“A com­ple­men­tary alter­na­tive to the heli­copter, the eVTOL has its place in the air trans­port offered from Nice Côte d’Azur, lab­o­ra­to­ry of the air­port of tomor­row, sec­ond plat­form in France and gate­way to and exit from a land­locked ter­ri­to­ry.”

Addi­tion­al­ly, Lil­i­um is cur­rent­ly in ongo­ing dis­cus­sions with fur­ther local part­ners for the pos­si­ble cre­ation of addi­tion­al ver­ti­ports in Sophia Antipo­lis, Aix-en-Provence, and Mar­seille, which are expect­ed to be con­clud­ed before the end of the year.

The com­pa­ny is also in talks with sev­er­al oper­a­tors that are inter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing the Lil­i­um Jet and oper­at­ing the net­work to cre­ate a sus­tain­able, time-sav­ing expe­ri­ence for their pas­sen­gers.

Sebastien Borel, CCO of Lil­i­um, said: “As a tru­ly Euro­pean com­pa­ny based in Munich, Ger­many, with flight test­ing in Spain and with nascent roots in France, Lil­i­um is extreme­ly proud to be able to assist in the cre­ation of the first region­al eVTOL net­work in the South of France and the first com­mer­cial­ly viable net­work in the EU. We see an enor­mous poten­tial in this region and can­not wait to see our Lil­i­um Jet fly there soon.”

Envi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty is at the core of the Côte d’Azur region, with Aéro­ports de la Côte d’Azur com­mit­ting to achieve car­bon neu­tral­i­ty with­out off­set­ting its own emis­sions from 2030.

With its expect­ed VTOL capa­bil­i­ty, low noise, and zero oper­at­ing emis­sions, the Lil­i­um Jet will be the opti­mal mode of region­al trans­porta­tion to help achieve this goal.

UrbanV’s ver­ti­ports will assist the com­mit­ment to emis­sions neu­tral­i­ty, devel­op­ing sus­tain­able ground infra­struc­ture for eVTOLs to ensure safe, fea­si­ble, and seam­less oper­a­tions while pro­vid­ing a delight­ful pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence thanks to its inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies and effi­cient oper­a­tions.

Once live, the region­al net­work will con­nect high­ly fre­quent­ed des­ti­na­tions with fast, safe, and sus­tain­able trav­el for pas­sen­gers to get to their des­ti­na­tion at a frac­tion of the time typ­i­cal­ly required by car.

Car­lo Tur­si, CEO at UrbanV, added: “At UrbanV, we aim to improve people’s lives by enabling a fast, effi­cient, safe, and clean alter­na­tive to exist­ing trans­port solu­tions for peo­ple and goods over short dis­tances, by air.

“We have the ambi­tion to become a major glob­al oper­a­tor of ver­ti­port net­works and we will be glob­al pio­neers in estab­lish­ing some of the first AAM routes world­wide. We are excit­ed to part­ner with Lil­i­um and Aéro­ports de la Côte d’Azur, two glob­al lead­ers in their respec­tive fields, and we look for­ward to explor­ing togeth­er with them the great poten­tial of intro­duc­ing advanced air mobil­i­ty in the French Riv­iera.”

The French Riv­iera, glob­al­ly known as the Côte d’Azur, com­bines some of the world’s most attrac­tive hol­i­day and busi­ness event des­ti­na­tions on the Mediter­ranean coast of south­east­ern France. The Côte d’Azur serves as a vital trans­porta­tion hub attract­ing more than 11 mil­lion tourists annu­al­ly.