Eve Air Mobility and United Airlines to launch eVTOL aircraft services in San Francisco area by 2026

Eve Air Mobil­i­ty and Unit­ed Air­lines have announced major plans to bring Urban Air Mobil­i­ty to San Fran­cis­co, by launch­ing elec­tric com­muter flights through­out the Bay Area by 2026.

The announce­ment made today (Wednes­day) is an impor­tant first step as both com­pa­nies will be work­ing with local and state offi­cials, infra­struc­ture, ener­gy and tech­nol­o­gy providers to ensure the appro­pri­ate infra­struc­ture is in place to intro­duce eVTOL air­craft flights. The com­pa­nies are also work­ing togeth­er to iden­ti­fy ori­gin and des­ti­na­tion areas and the future route net­works.

In addi­tion to a new, effi­cient trans­porta­tion option, Eve not­ed that eVTOL flights in the Bay Area are expect­ed to have a pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic impact on the com­mu­ni­ty includ­ing new employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Posi­tions rang­ing from pilots and air­craft ser­vice tech­ni­cians to train­ing and tech­ni­cal ser­vices are among the numer­ous roles that will be need­ed as eVTOL flights are intro­duced and expand. The devel­op­ment of the nec­es­sary infra­struc­ture to sup­port eVTOL oper­a­tions is also expect­ed to con­tribute val­ue and employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties to the com­mu­ni­ty.

Andre Stein, co-CEO of Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, said: “Our shared goal is to pro­vide res­i­dents and vis­i­tors to the San Fran­cis­co Bay area with effi­cient and cost-com­pet­i­tive trans­porta­tion in one of the most dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed urban areas in the U.S. The Bay Area is per­fect for eVTOL flights giv­en its size, traf­fic, focus on sus­tain­abil­i­ty, inno­va­tion and com­mit­ment to add oth­er options for mobil­i­ty.”

In 2022, Unit­ed announced a $15 mil­lion invest­ment in Eve Air Mobil­i­ty and a con­di­tion­al pur­chase agree­ment for 200 of its eVTOL air­craft plus 200 options. This is part of its strat­e­gy to invest in cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies as the air­line stakes out is posi­tion as a leader in invest­ing in avi­a­tion sus­tain­abil­i­ty and inno­va­tion tech­nolo­gies.

Unit­ed’s invest­ment in Eve was dri­ven in part by con­fi­dence in the poten­tial growth oppor­tu­ni­ties in the UAM mar­ket and Eve’s unique rela­tion­ship with Embraer, a trust­ed air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er with a proven track record of build­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing air­craft over the com­pa­ny’s 53-year his­to­ry.

A key piece of the rela­tion­ship includes access to Embraer’s glob­al ser­vice cen­ters, parts ware­hous­es and field ser­vice tech­ni­cians, paving the way for a reli­able oper­a­tion. Upon entry into ser­vice, Unit­ed could have its entire eVTOL fleet ser­viced by Eve’s ser­vice and sup­port net­work.

Michael Lesk­i­nen, Pres­i­dent of Unit­ed Air­lines Ven­tures, said: “Urban Air Mobil­i­ty has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tion­ize how Unit­ed cus­tomers work, live, and trav­el. Eve’s pro­posed route is a crit­i­cal first step towards mak­ing this all-elec­tric and qui­et com­mute a real­i­ty for Bay Area res­i­dents.”

Sched­uled to enter ser­vice in 2026, Eve’s eVTOL air­craft will have a range of 60 miles (100 kilo­me­ters) allow­ing it to com­plete a vari­ety of urban air mobil­i­ty mis­sions in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area. 

It fea­tures a lift + cruise con­fig­u­ra­tion with ded­i­cat­ed rotors for ver­ti­cal flight and fixed wings to fly on cruise, with no com­po­nents required to change posi­tion dur­ing flight. It will be pilot­ed at launch but evolv­ing towards uncrewed oper­a­tions in the future.

Eve is the sec­ond eVTOL OEM that Unit­ed has invest­ed in. When Archer went pub­lic in a joint SPAC with Atlas Crest Invest­ment Corp in 2021, the major air­line placed an order for its air­craft which was worth $1 bil­lion, with an addi­tion­al option to pur­chase fur­ther air­craft worth $500 mil­lion.

Last year, Unit­ed made a $10 mil­lion pre-deliv­ery pay­ment to Archer for 100 of its air­craft and is work­ing with Archer to deliv­er the first com­mer­cial elec­tric air taxi routes in Chica­go and New York.