Joby Brings Electric Air Taxis to New York City in Week-Long Flight Campaign

Joby Avi­a­tion has com­plet­ed the first-ever point-to-point eVTOL air taxi demon­stra­tion flights in New York City’s his­to­ry, mark­ing the start of a week-long pub­lic cam­paign across the city’s exist­ing heli­port net­work.

Start­ing yes­ter­day (Mon­day), the cam­paign offers the first real-world demon­stra­tion of how elec­tric air taxis will be able to con­nect the region, link­ing ver­ti­ports, inter­na­tion­al air­ports and com­mu­ni­ties across the New York met­ro­pol­i­tan area.

Joby’s air­craft (N545JX) depart­ed from John F. Kennedy Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (JFK) and land­ed across the city’s exist­ing heli­port net­work, includ­ing Down­town Sky­port, and the West 30th Street and East 34th Street Heli­ports in Mid­town, home to Blade Air Mobility’s pre­mi­um pas­sen­ger lounges.

Togeth­er, these sites trace some of the com­mer­cial routes the com­pa­ny envi­sions for New York, con­nect­ing Low­er Man­hat­tan and Mid­town to JFK in under 10 min­utes.

The flights con­tin­ue Joby’s 2026 Elec­tric Skies Tour, a nation­al show­case timed to cel­e­brate the Unit­ed States’ 250th anniver­sary, fol­low­ing the tour’s inau­gur­al Bay Area flight cam­paign, which includ­ed a land­mark flight over the Gold­en Gate Bridge.

JoeBen Bevirt, founder and CEO of Joby, said: “New York has always been a city that defines the future by demand­ing bet­ter. We first flew here in 2023, and now we’re show­ing what the next chap­ter looks like: a qui­et, zero oper­at­ing emis­sions air taxi ser­vice designed to bet­ter serve New York­ers.

“This week, fly­ing between JFK and Man­hat­tan, we showed what the White House-backed eIPP ini­tia­tive makes pos­si­ble and offered New York a look at what’s com­ing.“

In New York, Joby’s com­mer­cial vision is sim­ple: turn one of the city’s most time con­sum­ing trips into one of its fastest. Through part­ner­ships with Delta Air Lines and Uber, Joby aims to cre­ate a seam­less, end-to-end expe­ri­ence that con­nects ground trans­porta­tion and air trav­el in a sin­gle jour­ney.

In a city where a typ­i­cal com­muter lost, by one esti­mate, 102 hours to traf­fic con­ges­tion in 2025, Joby’s goal is to reclaim that time by trans­form­ing a 60-to-120-minute dri­ve to JFK into a sev­en-minute flight.

Cen­tral to Joby’s New York strat­e­gy was the 2025 acqui­si­tion of Blade Air Mobility’s pas­sen­ger busi­ness, now a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of Joby. Blade’s oper­a­tional exper­tise, broad base of pas­sen­ger infra­struc­ture in Man­hat­tan and at key New York area air­ports enabled it to serve more than 90,000 pas­sen­gers in 2025. Blade pro­vides the foun­da­tion for com­mer­cial elec­tric air taxi ser­vice at scale and will accel­er­ate the city’s tran­si­tion from the use of heli­copters to qui­et and emis­sion-free air­craft.

Led by the NYC Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (NYCEDC), and in part­ner­ship with Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture and Ver­ti­ports by Atlantic, New York City’s heli­port infra­struc­ture will be elec­tri­fied in antic­i­pa­tion of the launch of com­mer­cial air taxi ser­vice.

Port Author­i­ty Chair­man Kevin O’Toole, said: “The bridges, tun­nels, air­ports, and rail lines that the Port Author­i­ty oper­ates move hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ple through this region every year, and our job is to make sure that net­work keeps pace with the future.

“This cut­ting-edge air­craft is exact­ly the kind of inno­va­tion we have a respon­si­bil­i­ty to test, under­stand, and help shape for the good of the region and the pub­lic. These flights advance our work to deter­mine how next-gen­er­a­tion avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy can serve the peo­ple of New York and New Jer­sey.”

NYCEDC Inter­im Pres­i­dent & CEO Jean­ny Pak, added: “These his­toric Joby flights, link­ing our city-owned heli­port to our air­ports, are proof that the future of advanced air mobil­i­ty is no longer a Jet­sons-esque fan­ta­sy – it’s already here.

“NYCEDC is thrilled to ush­er in New York City’s tran­si­tion to elec­tric flight, and these flights mark a real mile­stone in that jour­ney. Build­ing on the progress we’ve made along­side Down­town Sky­port and Atlantic Avi­a­tion since Joby last flew in NYC skies by upgrad­ing the city-owned heli­ports to sup­port eVTOL charg­ing infra­struc­ture and Blue High­ways mar­itime deliv­ery, NYCEDC is mak­ing New York a more sus­tain­able, green­er, and inno­v­a­tive trans­porta­tion land­scape for all New York­ers.”

These flights cel­e­brate the March announce­ment of New York being select­ed under the fed­er­al eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP), estab­lished by exec­u­tive order, which aims to accel­er­ate com­mer­cial roll­out of this next gen­er­a­tion of air trans­porta­tion across the U.S. Joby was named a part­ner on five select­ed projects, span­ning 12 states.

The Port Author­i­ty of New York and New Jer­sey — the lead part­ner behind one of the select­ed projects and the agency respon­si­ble for much of the region’s crit­i­cal trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture includ­ing air­ports, bridges, tun­nels, and the sea­port — worked close­ly with the FAA, Joby, and oth­er eIPP part­ners to make these flights pos­si­ble, bring­ing the program’s goals to life by inte­grat­ing qui­et, emis­sions-free air taxi ser­vice at one of the nation’s busiest air­ports.

Joby con­tin­ues to make progress in the final stages of FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, marked by the recent flight of its first con­form­ing air­craft for TIA, which will pave the way for FAA pilots to car­ry out for-cred­it tests.

Build­ing on a series of pilot­ed demon­stra­tions across the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, the New York cam­paign puts the air­craft in real flight routes and real envi­ron­ments in one of the world’s most dynam­ic cities, demon­strat­ing the acoustics and per­for­mance met­rics that are crit­i­cal to unlock­ing the urban aer­i­al rideshar­ing mar­ket.