Archer, Abu Dhabi Investment Office Sign MOU, Plans to Launch Company’s eVTOL Service Across UAE in 2026

The good news just keeps rolling on for Archer Avi­a­tion as the U.S company’s glob­al ambi­tions eye the UAE and a signed Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) with Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Office (ADIO) this week (Octo­ber 16th), to launch a Mid­night eVTOL ser­vice across the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates in 2026, reports a press release. The col­lab­o­ra­tion also includes oth­er avi­a­tion indus­try par­tic­i­pants, in par­tic­u­lar, Fal­con Avi­a­tion and GAL-AMMROC.

High­lights of MOU include:-

: Archer, along­side its man­u­fac­tur­ing part­ner, Stel­lan­tis and UAE part­ner­ships, to build an engi­neer­ing ‘Cen­tre of Excel­lence’ to back the grow­ing AAM indus­try in the UAE and across the Mid­dle East.

: To col­lab­o­rate with local man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies and Main­te­nance, Repair and Over­haul (MRO) providers in Abu Dhabi, to spear­head the pro­duc­tion of eVTOL air­craft.

: Archer to show­case its Mid­night Air­craft at the Dubai Air­show in Novem­ber (13th-17th).

: Mid­night to be dis­played the fol­low­ing week at the ‘Con­fer­ence on Avi­a­tion and Alter­na­tive Fuels’ (CAAF) host­ed by the Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (GCAA), also in Dubai.

Archer’s inten­tion is to make ADIO its ini­tial inter­na­tion­al launch part­ner, where the invest­ment office plans to help estab­lish the first com­pre­hen­sive head­quar­ters and man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ties in the Smart and Autonomous Vehi­cle Indus­try (SAVI) Clus­ter in Abu Dhabi.

Along­side Adam Gold­stein, GCAA Lead­er­ship Vis­it­ing Archer’s Flight Test Facil­i­ty at Sali­nas, Cal­i­for­nia (Cred­it: Busi­ness Wire)

The U.S com­pa­ny will be in dis­cus­sions with oth­er indus­try par­tic­i­pants whom it plans to announce MOUs with, while attend­ing the Dubai Air­show and the fol­low­ing week’s Con­fer­ence.

His Excel­len­cy Saif Mohammed Al Suwai­di, Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, com­ment­ed, “The GCAA recent­ly vis­it­ed Archer Aviation’s glob­al head­quar­ters in Cal­i­for­nia to inspect its Mid­night air­craft and learn about their cer­ti­fi­ca­tion progress with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion. Our goal is to approve Archer’s air taxi to fly in the UAE as soon as it is cer­ti­fied by the FAA, and we are very excit­ed to col­lab­o­rate with them to bring elec­tric air taxis to the coun­try.”

His Excel­len­cy Badr Al-Ola­ma, Act­ing Direc­tor Gen­er­al of the Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Office, added, “Bring­ing elec­tric avi­a­tion to the UAE will help unlock con­ges­tion with zero emis­sions and, in turn, bring mil­lions in for­eign direct invest­ment and thou­sands of jobs to the region over the next decade.”

Archer has raised over USD1.1 bil­lion of fund­ing to date, includ­ing invest­ments from Mubadala Cap­i­tal, Unit­ed Air­lines, Stel­lan­tis and Boe­ing.

Mid­night (Cred­it: Archer)

Adam Gold­stein, co-Founder and CEO of Archer, enthused, “We are excit­ed to announce this joint col­lab­o­ra­tion for the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates to become our first inter­na­tion­al mar­ket out­side of the Unit­ed States. Archer plans to part­ner close­ly with ADIO and the Depart­ment of Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment to bring man­u­fac­tur­ing and oper­a­tions for our air taxis to the region.”

Archer also signed MOUs this week with Fal­con Avi­a­tion who will oper­ate its air taxis across Dubai and Abu Dhabi and GAL-AMMROC, appoint­ed to be the MRO sup­port for Archer’s eVTOL air­craft.

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Sul­tan Bin Khal­i­fa, Fal­con Avi­a­tion Vice-Chair­man, remarked, “Fal­con Avi­a­tion has built an unpar­al­leled rep­u­ta­tion for fly­ing pas­sen­gers in heli­copters across the UAE for near­ly two decades. With the Archer agree­ment, we look for­ward to con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide world-class pas­sen­ger trans­port in all-elec­tric air taxis across Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the next decades to come.”

Archer’s goal is to trans­form urban trav­el, replac­ing 60–90 minute com­mutes by car with esti­mat­ed 10–20 minute elec­tric air taxi flights that are safe, sus­tain­able, low noise, and cost-com­pet­i­tive with ground trans­porta­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.archer.com

Top image: His Excel­lence Badr Sal­im Al-Ola­ma, Archer CEO Adam Gold­stein and CCO Nikhil Goel Dur­ing Sign­ing Cer­e­mo­ny Announc­ing Archer’s Plans To Make the UAE Its First Inter­na­tion­al Launch Part­ner (Cred­it: Busi­ness Wire)