Middle East: Archer Aviation Announces “New Appointment to Support UAE eVTOL Entry-into-Service”

As the eVTOL indus­try devel­ops, it does seem at times, that Archer and Joby are joined at the hip. When one com­pa­ny releas­es news, the oth­er quick­ly fol­lows, par­tic­u­lar­ly when it comes to the Mid­dle East. 

On this occa­sion, it was the same day (12th Novem­ber). While Joby was announc­ing the start of the first ver­ti­port con­struc­tion in Dubai, Sau­di Ara­bia, Archer was tout­ing tid­ings of an impor­tant new appoint­ment to sup­port its UAE eVTOL entry-into-ser­vice.

They say com­pe­ti­tion is healthy. Here we have the two lead­ing U.S fly­ing taxi com­pa­nies vying with each oth­er for pole news posi­tion. When a high­ly suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man now rules over Amer­i­ca, this can only be a good thing.

Archer has announced the hir­ing of Dr. Tal­ib Alhi­nai, as its Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) lead. A for­mer Direc­tor of Strat­e­gy, a super­vi­so­ry body that reports to the Emirate’s Exec­u­tive Coun­cil under the com­mand of the Crown Prince, His High­ness Sheikh Khaled bin Mohammed bin Zayed, he is present­ly the youngest Board Direc­tor of the UAE Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (GCAA) and is on its Audit & Risk Com­mit­tee.

This appoint­ment is a shrewd move by Archer, sim­i­lar to when the U.S com­pa­ny hired Bil­ly Nolen, the pre­vi­ous act­ing FAA Admin­is­tra­tor, as its new Chief Safe­ty Offi­cer. Imag­ine all the con­tacts, expe­ri­ence and knowl­edge of the region Dr Alhi­nai holds. 

He is also a ris­ing star of the Mid­dle East tech world and holds impres­sive cre­den­tials. While a doc­tor­ate stu­dent at the UK’s Impe­r­i­al Col­lege of Lon­don, he was recog­nised in 2017 by MIT Tech­nol­o­gy Review as a lead­ing under 35 Euro­pean Inno­va­tor, after work­ing on a con­cept to rev­o­lu­tionise “the tra­di­tion­al con­struc­tion sec­tor” by build­ing drones capa­ble of print­ing struc­tures in 3D at scale,“while hov­er­ing.”

With this tech back­ground, Alhi­nai will be crit­i­cal in assist­ing the recent­ly Archer formed, Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Office (ADIO) Con­sor­tium, to help the U.S company’s launch in the UAE.

Via this group, Archer is already mak­ing progress in estab­lish­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry path­way, infra­struc­ture and flight oper­a­tions plans nec­es­sary to enable mar­ket entry in late 2025, ear­ly 2026.

Please Watch Video

https://twitter.com/ArcherAviation/status/1856340131269226548

Nikhil Goel, Archer’s CCO, com­ment­ed, “As a leader who worked to advance Abu Dhabi’s strate­gic and exec­u­tive plans, Dr. Alhi­nai will be instru­men­tal as we head towards our launch across the UAE, start­ing in Abu Dhabi.” He con­tin­ued,  “His back­ground in aer­i­al robot­ics and his exper­tise in avi­a­tion and nation­al pol­i­cy will help accel­er­ate our launch of air taxi ser­vices in the region.”

Dr. Alhi­nai remarked, “The UAE is lead­ing the way in accel­er­at­ing the launch of elec­tric air taxis and it is a cor­ner­stone of Archer’s com­mer­cial plans. The team is tal­ent­ed, the tech is impres­sive, and we’ve got a big year ahead of us. I am excit­ed to dig in!”

He also held roles at McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny across sev­er­al inter­na­tion­al mar­kets, with expe­ri­ence in high-growth tech, sus­tain­abil­i­ty and advanced air mobil­i­ty. 

Apart from the Ph.D. in Aer­i­al Robot­ics from Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don, Alhi­nai also holds a Bach­e­lor of Engi­neer­ing in Mecha­tron­ic Engi­neer­ing from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.archer.com

(Images: Archer Avi­a­tion — cred­it: Busi­ness Wire)

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