Archer commits to launching first urban air mobility network in Los Angeles by 2024

Archer Avi­a­tion plans to launch its first urban air mobil­i­ty net­work in Los Ange­les by 2024, as the com­pa­ny looks to address some of Cal­i­for­ni­a’s mobil­i­ty chal­lenges and pro­vide an eas­i­er way for peo­ple to trav­el in between dense met­ro­pol­i­tan areas.

The com­pa­ny — which is val­ued at approx­i­mate­ly $3.8 bil­lion fol­low­ing a recent SPAC merg­er with Atlas Crest Invest­ment Corp — is sup­port­ing efforts to edu­cate those liv­ing in LA about new trans­porta­tion tech­nol­o­gy.

Archer’s eVTOL air­craft is expect­ed to trav­el dis­tances of 60 miles at speeds of 150mph. A full-scale ver­sion is set to be revealed lat­er this year.

Adam Gold­stein, co-Founder and co-CEO of Archer, said: “Our part­ner­ship with the City of Los Ange­les will be one of our major mile­stones in bring­ing quick, safe, afford­able every­day flight to dense urban loca­tions.”

Brett Adcock, co-Founder and co-CEO of Archer, added: “In iden­ti­fy­ing our first city part­ner­ship, it was crit­i­cal to have a shared vision when it comes to how peo­ple will move around more seam­less­ly and with less impact on the envi­ron­ment around them. Work­ing with Urban Move­ment Labs will be invalu­able as we col­lec­tive­ly advance our pro­grams ahead of our first cus­tomer flights in 2024.”

Los Ange­les May­or Eric Garcetti announced the Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Part­ner­ship in Decem­ber 2020, which is a first-of-its-kind ini­tia­tive in the U.S. to make the city a leader on Urban Air Mobil­i­ty.

As part of a col­lab­o­ra­tion between the Mayor’s Office, the Los Ange­les Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (LADOT), and Urban Move­ment Labs (UML), the pro­gram will devel­op strate­gies for the inte­gra­tion of UAM into exist­ing trans­porta­tion net­works and land use poli­cies. UML and the City of Los Ange­les also plan to col­lab­o­rate to devel­op the design and access of ver­ti­ports.

Lil­ly Shoup, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Urban Move­ment Labs, said: “Our vision is to improve mobil­i­ty, reduce con­ges­tion, cre­ate employ­ment, and pro­mote health­i­er com­mu­ni­ties through pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tion.

“Work­ing with com­pa­nies like Archer which are at the fore­front of tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion in the emerg­ing UAM space deliv­ers a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty to take the per­spec­tive of our pro­grams beyond just the two dimen­sions of roads and rail­ways, and into the skies.”

As the same time as Archer’s joint SPAC deal, Unit­ed Air­lines — one of the biggest air­lin­ers in the world — announced it has placed a com­mer­cial order for $1 bil­lion worth of eVTOL air­craft from Archer, with an option to buy an addi­tion­al $500 mil­lion of air­craft.

Once the air­craft are in oper­a­tion and have met United’s oper­at­ing and busi­ness require­ments, Unit­ed, togeth­er with Mesa Air­lines, would acquire a fleet of up to 200 eVTOL air­craft. They would be oper­at­ed by a part­ner to give cus­tomers a quick, eco­nom­i­cal and low-car­bon way to get to United’s hub air­ports.

Michael Lesk­i­nen, Vice Pres­i­dent of Cor­po­rate Devel­op­ment and Investor Rela­tions at Unit­ed Air­lines, added: “Archer’s com­mit­ment to launch their first eVTOL air­craft in one of United’s hubs means our cus­tomers are anoth­er step clos­er to reduc­ing their car­bon foot­print at every stage of their jour­ney, before they even take their seat.

“We’re con­fi­dent that Los Ange­les is only the begin­ning for Archer and we look for­ward to help­ing them extend their reach across all of our hubs.”