DUBAI AIRSHOW 2025: “Archer, THC, PIF, RSG Collaborate to Launch eVTOL Air Mobility in Saudi Arabia”

Archer Avi­a­tion, The Heli­copter com­pa­ny (THC), Sau­di Arabia’s pre­mier heli­copter com­mer­cial oper­a­tor, The Pub­lic Invest­ment Fund (PIF) and Red Sea Glob­al (RSG), the devel­op­er behind regen­er­a­tive tourism des­ti­na­tions and a PIF com­pa­ny, are col­lab­o­rat­ing on the devel­op­ment, test­ing and poten­tial inte­gra­tion of Archer’s eVTOL air­craft into RSG’s oper­a­tions, reports a press release.

The agree­ment was signed at the Dubai Air­show. This will be one of the first deploy­ments of eVTOL air­craft in the King­dom of Sau­di Ara­bia.

The release explains, “The sign­ing marks a major step for­ward in the Kingdom’s efforts to explore and inte­grate eVTOL air­craft into its emerg­ing mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. The Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) was signed by Cap­tain Arnaud Mar­tinez, CEO of THC, John Pagano, Group CEO of Red Sea Glob­al, and Adam Gold­stein, Founder & CEO of Archer Avi­a­tion.” 

Cap­tain Mar­tinez com­ment­ed, “Our part­ner­ship demon­strates con­fi­dence in emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies and a shared com­mit­ment to shap­ing a smarter, more con­nect­ed tomor­row, togeth­er.”

Please Watch Video

Mid­night’s recent tri­al flight in UAE

The release con­tin­ues, “In the ini­tial phase of the agree­ment, Archer Avi­a­tion will work togeth­er with THC and RSG to help build the foun­da­tion­al frame­work for their planned eVTOL oper­a­tions in Sau­di Ara­bia. This includes estab­lish­ing a struc­tured sand­box envi­ron­ment to con­duct test flights with Archer’s Mid­night eVTOL under real-world con­di­tions to assess air­craft per­for­mance, oper­a­tional fea­si­bil­i­ty, reg­u­la­to­ry align­ment, pas­sen­ger accep­tance, and over­all ecosys­tem readi­ness.”

It con­tin­ues, “They will also col­lab­o­rate on test­ing advanced aer­i­al tech­nolo­gies, explor­ing long-term strate­gic part­ner­ships for large-scale deploy­ment, and sup­port­ing region­al inno­va­tion to advance next-gen­er­a­tion avi­a­tion sys­tems.” 

Pagano remarked, “Part­ner­ing with THC and Archer, to explore the inte­gra­tion of eVTOL air­craft into our des­ti­na­tions aligns per­fect­ly with our vision for regen­er­a­tive tourism, cre­at­ing clean­er, faster and more con­nect­ed ways for guests to expe­ri­ence the beau­ty of Sau­di Ara­bia.”

As the project pro­gress­es, RSG will lead the sand­box test­ing with Archer’s Mid­night air­craft to eval­u­ate the poten­tial for inte­grat­ing eVTOL air­craft into the company’s future oper­a­tions. Giv­en RSG’s con­trolled air­space, sus­tain­able infra­struc­ture and its posi­tion as a flag­ship devel­op­er under PIF, this offers a suit­able plat­form to demon­strate the poten­tial of AAM in sup­port­ing regen­er­a­tive tourism and next-gen­er­a­tion trans­porta­tion options for the King­dom.

Adam Gold­stein, Archer’s Founder and CEO, added, “A key part of Archer’s strat­e­gy is part­ner­ing with the lead­ing oper­a­tors in each coun­try who share our goals and vision, and both THC and RSG are sim­i­lar­ly com­mit­ted to ensur­ing that Sau­di Ara­bia is oper­a­tional­ly pre­pared to launch eVTOL air­craft.”

Fol­low­ing com­ple­tion of the sand­box pro­gram, all par­ties will review the results and con­sid­er fur­ther ini­tia­tives to sup­port large scale intro­duc­tion of eVTOL ser­vices.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.archer.com

www.redseaglobal.com

https://www.helicopter.com.sa

(Top image: Mid­night on dis­play at Dubai Air­show 2025 — cred­it: aviationweek.com)

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