Blade and Eve Announce Strategic Partnership to Expand Urban Air Mobility in India

Blade India, a joint ven­ture between Hunch Ven­tures and Blade Air Mobil­i­ty, and Eve Air Mobil­i­ty have announced a strate­gic part­ner­ship which includes a non-bind­ing order of up to 200 eVTOL air­craft, ser­vice and sup­port, and Eve’s urban air traf­fic man­age­ment (UATM) soft­ware.

The com­pa­nies also plan to col­lab­o­rate on a three-month pilot project con­nect­ing pas­sen­gers using heli­copters. Blade India’s order will ini­tial­ly under­write 50,000 hours of flight time per year in the region using Eve’s eVTOL, with intra-city heli­copter flights to begin as part of a pilot project.

Data col­lect­ed through Blade India’s cus­tomer expe­ri­ence and oper­a­tions will be used to fur­ther devel­op Eve’s eVTOL, ser­vice and sup­port solu­tions, and its UATM soft­ware. Blade India began in 2019 with flights from Mum­bai, Shir­di, Pune, and Ban­ga­lore.

India has vast expanse, acces­si­bil­i­ty con­cerns, traf­fic con­ges­tion and reg­u­la­tions. As the pio­neers of short-haul air mobil­i­ty ser­vices in India, Blade India will act as Eve’s on-ground knowl­edge part­ner to cre­ate the urban air mobil­i­ty (UAM) ecosys­tem.

Blade India man­ag­ing direc­tor Amit Dut­ta said: “India’s traf­fic con­ges­tion woes are only expect­ed to get worse. This part­ner­ship allows us to lever­age Eve’s exper­tise in not just eVTOL design but also in the infra­struc­ture required to sup­port UAM.”

Eve co-CEO André Stein added: “We are thrilled about part­ner­ing with Blade India and pio­neer­ing the UAM mar­ket in the coun­try, which has the poten­tial to be one of the largest mar­kets glob­al­ly.

“This ini­tial order will allow us to enter into ser­vice in India and fur­ther devel­op the ecosys­tem accord­ing to the community’s needs. We look for­ward to offer­ing the peo­ple of India a zero-emis­sion UAM solu­tion in the future that will be qui­et, effi­cient, and acces­si­ble.

The emer­gence of elec­tric avi­a­tion with eVTOL vehi­cles is expect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the car­bon foot­print, noise and cost of fly­ing, mak­ing it more acces­si­ble to the mass­es.