Blade Urban Air Mobility to use Eve’s eVTOL aircraft across its Southern Florida and West Coast markets from 2026
Eve Air Mobility will provide Blade Air Mobility with 60,000 hours of flight time per year using its eVTOL aircraft across Southern Florida and the West Coast of the USA from 2026.
Subject to certain conditions, Eve plans to deploy up to 60 aircraft together with local partners for Blade’s use throughout the United States. Blade will pay for flight time utilised on Eve’s aircraft, which will be made available by Eve and other third-parties.
The deployment of Eve aircraft across the Blade network is subject to the parties entering into definitive final agreements.
Andre Stein, President & CEO of Eve, said: “Blade is aligned with our mission as they have created a platform that provides the user seamless access to Urban Air Mobility, and now with Eve to provide an experience that is quiet and without emissions.
“The company’s platform will be instrumental in deploying our aircraft in key markets in South Florida and the West Coast of the United States. This partnership with Blade is the next step in unlocking the future of mobility in these key areas and marks an exciting time for both companies.”
Eve’s eVTOL aircraft completed its first flight of the engineering simulator in July 2020, and a proof of concept in October of that year. Additionally, its Urban Air Traffic Management project reached a new milestone in its collaboration with the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority to develop a scalable environment needed to host UAM flights.
This announcement with Blade is the latest in a long line of partnerships Eve has already formed in the urban air mobility ecosystem. Earlier this week, the company said it was teaming up with Skyports to develop vehicle-vertiport operations in Asia and the Americas.
And earlier this month, other notable partnerships included launch customer Halo Aviation — which has placed a 200-strong aircraft order ahead of operations in both the UK and USA — Helisul Aviation, which will help develop UAM services in Brazil, and Ascent in the Asia-Pacific region.
While Blade has also made several key announcements this year, including an order of up to 20 eVTOL aircraft from Beta Technologies and up to 30 from Wisk.
Blade went public last year in a joint merger with Experience Investment Corp. and at the time, said the funds from the transaction will enable it to expand new urban air mobility routes, its network of captive passenger infrastructure as well as its consumer-to-cockpit technology stack.
Rob Wiesenthal, CEO of Blade, said: “Blade is pleased to partner with Eve, leveraging Embraer’s deep aerospace expertise to provide Blade with quiet, zero-carbon, electric aircraft.
“Eve’s aircraft provides ideal operating economics for Blade’s shorter distance routes, adding to our three other recently announced EVA partnerships which, together, can optimise service for Blade’s wide variety of mission profiles and regional hubs.”
