Joby Aviation and Virgin Atlantic Finalize Partnership for UK Air Taxi Services

Joby Avi­a­tion and Vir­gin Atlantic have signed a defin­i­tive mul­ti-year agree­ment to intro­duce elec­tric air taxi ser­vices in the Unit­ed King­dom.

The part­ner­ship was at the Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air­show on the 22nd of July, and builds on a 2025 announce­ment and estab­lish­es Vir­gin Atlantic as Joby’s exclu­sive air­line part­ner in the UK. It com­ple­ments Joby’s exist­ing exclu­siv­i­ty arrange­ment with Delta Air Lines, which holds a 49% stake in Vir­gin Atlantic.

Under the agree­ment, Vir­gin Atlantic will inte­grate Joby’s air taxi ser­vices into its book­ing chan­nels, includ­ing its mobile app and web­site. Trav­el­ers will be able to book seam­less con­nec­tions between long-haul flights and Joby’s short-range elec­tric air taxi flights.

Ini­tial focus will be on Vir­gin Atlantic’s hubs at Lon­don Heathrow and Man­ches­ter Air­port. Man­ches­ter will serve as a key con­nec­tion point for north­ern Eng­land. Ear­ly planned routes include Man­ches­ter Air­port to Leeds in approx­i­mate­ly 15 min­utes and Heathrow to Cen­tral Lon­don in as lit­tle as 8 min­utes — jour­neys that cur­rent­ly take over an hour by road.

Joby will be respon­si­ble for air­craft oper­a­tions, route man­age­ment, and secur­ing reg­u­la­to­ry approvals from the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA). Vir­gin Atlantic will sup­port infra­struc­ture inte­gra­tion and cus­tomer acqui­si­tion. The net­work is expect­ed to expand to addi­tion­al UK cities and com­mu­ni­ties over time.

Joby’s elec­tric air taxi uses six tilt­ing pro­pellers for ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing with sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er noise lev­els than tra­di­tion­al heli­copters. The air­craft is opti­mized for routes up to 100 miles. The com­pa­ny has com­plet­ed thou­sands of test flights, includ­ing recent demon­stra­tions in San Fran­cis­co and New York.

Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is pro­gress­ing under the Bilat­er­al Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agree­ment between the FAA and UK CAA. Joby’s air­craft dis­played at Pot­ters Fields Park in Lon­don in July 2026 allowed mem­bers of the pub­lic to expe­ri­ence a full-scale mod­el.

“Vir­gin Atlantic’s ded­i­ca­tion to a world-class cus­tomer expe­ri­ence makes them the right part­ner to rep­re­sent Joby in the UK, and this agree­ment reflects the next step in that rela­tion­ship,” said JoeBen Bevirt, Founder and CEO of Joby Avi­a­tion. ”The UK is one of the most excit­ing mar­kets for this tech­nol­o­gy, and this part­ner­ship could dri­ve sig­nif­i­cant oppor­tu­ni­ties for Joby as we bring air taxi ser­vice to some of the country’s busiest cities.”

“This agree­ment marks an excit­ing next chap­ter in our part­ner­ship with Joby and a sig­nif­i­cant step towards bring­ing elec­tric air taxi ser­vices to the UK” said Corneel Koster, CEO of Vir­gin Atlantic. “Togeth­er, we’ll cre­ate more seam­less jour­neys for our cus­tomers, mak­ing it eas­i­er than ever to trav­el between towns, cities and our air­ports. Inno­va­tion has always been part of Vir­gin Atlanti

Thomas Sleightholm

Thomas is a con­tent writer for eVTOL Insights, cov­er­ing all aspects of the glob­al Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem. Got a sto­ry for him? Please send an email to editorial@evtolinsights.com

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