Lilium debuts Lilium Jet at Houston Hobby Airport, company signs infrastructure partnership with Galaxy FBO

Lil­ium has offi­cial­ly debuted its Lil­i­um Jet to the US mar­ket this week and signed an infra­struc­ture part­ner­ship wih Galaxy FBO, to ensure acces­si­bil­i­ty at their Hous­ton-area facil­i­ties.

They include Hous­ton Hob­by Air­port, Con­roe North Hous­ton Region­al Air­port and The Wood­lands Heli­port

With an antic­i­pat­ed ini­tial oper­at­ing range of rough­ly 110 miles, the Lil­i­um Jet will be capa­ble of quick­ly con­nect­ing Hous­to­ni­ans to the broad­er region, with routes like Hous­ton Hob­by Air­port to Galve­ston, Hous­ton Space­port to Col­lege Sta­tion, The Wood­lands to Galve­ston, and oth­ers.

Jere­my Gee, CEO of Galaxy FBO, said: “We are excit­ed to trans­form Galaxy FBO into a cut­ting-edge hub for the eVTOL inno­va­tion. As the future of elec­tric avi­a­tion takes flight, this marks a sig­nif­i­cant step in mak­ing Hous­ton a leader in sus­tain­able and effi­cient trans­porta­tion solu­tions.

“Our team is proud to sup­port Lil­i­um’s rev­o­lu­tion­ary mode of trav­el that will con­nect Greater Hous­ton in ways nev­er thought pos­si­ble.”

Further Discussion across Greater Houston region

To show­case the trans­for­ma­tive poten­tial of the Lil­i­um Jet and the broad­er elec­tric avi­a­tion land­scape, the Greater Hous­ton Part­ner­ship, the region’s largest cham­ber of com­merce, is col­lab­o­rat­ing with Galaxy FBO and Lil­i­um for an engag­ing dis­cus­sion with pol­i­cy­mak­ers and indus­try lead­ers.

Kevin Tip­ton, Senior Direc­tor for Aero­space & Avi­a­tion at the Greater Hous­ton Part­ner­ship, expressed enthu­si­asm about this col­lab­o­ra­tion.

He said: “Hous­ton is home to the world’s lead­ing aero­space com­pa­nies, and we’re thrilled to wel­come Lil­i­um and this next gen­er­a­tion of avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Togeth­er, we’re on the brink of some­thing ground­break­ing for our region.”

Hous­ton-based EMCJET has secured pro­duc­tion slots from Lil­i­um as part of a broad­er part­ner­ship agree­ment and is poised to be involved in the first round of cus­tomer deliv­er­ies start­ing in 2026.

Memo Mon­temay­or, Founder & CEO of EMCJET, said: “Our clients want to own the future of avi­a­tion and, with our part­ner­ship with Lil­i­um, they can do just that.

“With a spa­cious cab­in, lux­u­ri­ous fin­ish­es, and ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing capa­bil­i­ty, the Lil­i­um Jet meets our clients’ needs to trav­el safe­ly, sus­tain­ably, and com­fort­ably.”

Matthew Broff­man, Lilium’s VP of Com­mer­cial, Amer­i­c­as, added: “Lil­i­um is seri­ous about expand­ing in the U.S. and active­ly pro­gress­ing towards FAA val­i­da­tion.

“As part of our com­mit­ment to work­ing with com­mu­ni­ties across the U.S. and expand­ing our cus­tomer base, we’re excit­ed to show­case our air­craft for the first time in Hous­ton, a city with a proud lega­cy of aero­space inno­va­tion in Amer­i­ca.”

Upcoming event

Next month, the Lil­i­um Jet will be dis­played at the 2024 NBAA Busi­ness Avi­a­tion Con­ven­tion & Exhi­bi­tion (NBAA-BACE) in Las Vegas.

Lil­i­um is prepar­ing for its first pilot­ed flight of the Lil­i­um Jet in ear­ly 2025. Last month, the com­pa­ny announced the air­craft’s elec­tri­cal pow­er sys­tem suc­cess­ful­ly com­pletes the first phase of inte­gra­tion test­ing.

This achieve­ment marks a cru­cial step toward the Lil­i­um Jet’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and even­tu­al com­mer­cial use.