Archer And AEG Plan Downtown Los Angeles Vertiport Ahead Of LA28 Games

Archer Avi­a­tion and AEG are plan­ning to devel­op a ver­ti­port at L.A. LIVE in down­town Los Ange­les, adding a cen­tral loca­tion to Archer’s pro­posed air taxi net­work ahead of the 2028 Olympic and Par­a­lympic Games.

The com­pa­nies announced a mul­ti-year part­ner­ship on August 24 that would make Archer the exclu­sive air taxi provider for L.A. LIVE, AEG’s four-mil­lion-square-foot sports and enter­tain­ment dis­trict next to Crypto.com Are­na.

If devel­oped, the site would be the first announced ver­ti­port in down­town Los Ange­les and would pro­vide a planned con­nec­tion for vis­i­tors, per­form­ers and oth­er pas­sen­gers trav­el­ling to and from the dis­trict using Archer’s Mid­night elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing (eVTOL) air­craft.

The pro­posed ver­ti­port would com­ple­ment oth­er loca­tions in Archer’s planned Los Ange­les net­work, includ­ing SoFi Sta­di­um, USC and Hol­ly­wood Bur­bank. Hawthorne Air­port, which Archer recent­ly acquired, is expect­ed to serve as the network’s cen­tral oper­a­tional hub.

Archer is tar­get­ing short point-to-point flights with­in Los Ange­les. The goal of the planned LA net­work is to enable peo­ple to move across the city in just 10 to 20 min­utes aboard Mid­night, turn­ing com­mutes that can take an hour or more on the ground into short all-elec­tric flights.

The com­pa­nies have com­plet­ed an ini­tial fea­si­bil­i­ty study for the L.A. LIVE site, cov­er­ing land use, air­space, pow­er avail­abil­i­ty and poten­tial com­mu­ni­ty impacts. They are now exam­in­ing oper­a­tional require­ments and the pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence as they work towards the next stage of devel­op­ment.

The pro­posed facil­i­ty is also expect­ed to use elec­tric avi­a­tion charg­ing equip­ment from BETA Tech­nolo­gies. The com­pa­nies are part of the ACES con­sor­tium, which is work­ing on charg­ing infra­struc­ture intend­ed to sup­port elec­tric avi­a­tion oper­a­tions in met­ro­pol­i­tan areas.

“We are thrilled to pur­sue this endeav­or with Archer to enhance the fan expe­ri­ence around the major sports and live-enter­tain­ment events we host,” said Nick Bak­er, Pres­i­dent and Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, AEG Glob­al Part­ner­ships. “This is an ambi­tious project and exact­ly the kind of for­ward-think­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion that blends infra­struc­ture and tech­nol­o­gy in ser­vice of our fans, vis­i­tors, and the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty around major sports and live-enter­tain­ment events host­ed at L.A. LIVE.”

“Work­ing with AEG on an icon­ic project like this ver­ti­port at L.A. LIVE gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tin­ue build­ing the infra­struc­ture need­ed for South­ern Cal­i­for­nia to lead in the next era of all-elec­tric flight,” said Archer’s Founder and CEO, Adam Gold­stein.

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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