Archer Eyes Asia, Middle East for Global Air Taxi Expansion

News broke last week via bloomberg.com that Archer Avi­a­tion has plans to expand its air taxi ser­vice from the U.S to Asia and the Mid­dle East, as it con­tin­ues work to secure cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for its eVTOL in Amer­i­ca.

The Cal­i­for­nia start­up “is in advanced talks with poten­tial part­ners in sev­en major inter­na­tion­al mar­kets,” CEO Adam Gold­stein told Bloomberg at the recent Paris Air­show. After speak­ing with poten­tial cus­tomers, sup­pli­ers and gov­ern­ment offi­cials, Gold­stein remarked, “There is inter­est glob­al­ly for our air taxi ser­vices.”

The geo­graph­ic tar­gets include India, the UAE, Japan, Sin­ga­pore, Aus­tralia, Sau­di Ara­bia and Korea. While find­ing a strong part­ner is key, the com­pa­ny also looks favourably on the reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment for eVTOLs in those juris­dic­tions. He con­tin­ued, “We believe these mar­kets will be a fast fol­low after obtain­ing type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion with the FAA.”

Goldstein’s com­ments come soon after “lash­ing out” at the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency (EASA). He told the ft.com in a recent inter­view that cer­ti­fi­ca­tion guid­ance issued by the reg­u­la­tor “would make it extreme­ly hard” to com­mer­cialise air taxis with­in the bloc.

Archer Avi­a­tion Says Euro­pean Air Reg­u­la­tions “Not Good For Busi­ness!”

Bloomberg points out, “The com­mer­cial appeal of India, the world’s most pop­u­lous coun­try, is appar­ent with its traf­fic grid­lock and a ris­ing mid­dle class. The UAE, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are attrac­tive due to being glob­al cross­roads serv­ing East-West trav­ellers as well as well-heeled locals.” 

Archer has a con­tract to sell as many as 200 of its four-pas­sen­ger craft to Unit­ed Air­lines and its region­al part­ner Mesa Air Group. Each is an investor, along with car man­u­fac­tur­er and major part­ner, Stel­lan­tis, that has an 11 per­cent stake and Mubadala Cap­i­tal, an arm of Abu Dhabi’s sov­er­eign wealth fund.

Please Lis­ten

(Car­los Tavares (left), Adam Gold­stein (right) beside Mid­night Air­craft at Paris Air Show (June 19th). Cred­it — Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images)

While there are no guar­an­tees on when Archer or its eVTOL rivals will gain com­mer­cial flight approval, the present share price ris­es of the lead­ing fly­ing taxi com­pa­nies, in par­tic­u­lar JOBY, sug­gests that big busi­ness believes it will occur, soon­er rather than lat­er.

Mean­while, Archer said in May that it plans to begin flight-test­ing of its four-pas­sen­ger Mid­night this sum­mer, an air­craft that gained many acco­lades at the Paris Air­show, where it was on dis­play.

The com­pa­ny will charge what the mar­ket can bear, but has designed its ser­vice “to oper­ate prof­itably at prices com­pa­ra­ble to Uber Black road taxis,” CFO Mark Mesler, explained in a May 23rd investor pre­sen­ta­tion. Although he cau­tioned that air­port land­ing fees which have not been set yet, may change that cal­cu­la­tion.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.archer.com

(News Source: https://www.bloomberg.com)