Middle East: Archer and UAE’s GCAA Move To Streamlined Approach for Certifying its Midnight eVTOL Aircraft in the country

The UAE Gen­er­al Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (GCAA) has tran­si­tioned Archer’s Mid­night air­craft into a Restrict­ed Type Cer­tifi­cate (RTC) pro­gram, advanc­ing the reg­u­la­to­ry path for the air­craft’s entry into ser­vice in the coun­try.

In an announce­ment made yes­ter­day (Thurs­day), it says Archer is the first eVTOL OEM man­u­fac­tur­er to tran­si­tion to an RTC cer­ti­fi­ca­tion track with the GCAA, util­is­ing an air­wor­thi­ness path­way aligned with inter­na­tion­al avi­a­tion frame­works.

Adam Gold­stein, founder and CEO of Archer, said: “The UAE has been one of the most for­ward-lean­ing mar­kets in the world for advanced avi­a­tion, and the GCAA has been a strong, col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ner through­out this process. Advanc­ing Mid­night into this RTC pro­gram is a major step toward bring­ing elec­tric air taxis to the UAE.”

The RTC pro­gram pro­vides an estab­lished path­way for Archer to begin lim­it­ed com­mer­cial oper­a­tions. It also ensures that Mid­night is devel­oped under a reg­u­la­to­ry base­line that sup­ports long-term com­mer­cial via­bil­i­ty with­in the UAE. 

This mile­stone fol­lows sev­er­al years of tech­ni­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion between the GCAA and Archer, includ­ing mul­ti­ple on-site inspec­tions by experts at Archer’s head­quar­ters and flight test facil­i­ties in the U.S., as well as in-coun­try flights with Mid­night.

It was sup­port­ed by the Abu Dhabi Invest­ment Office (ADIO) as part of its com­mit­ment to estab­lish­ing Abu Dhabi as a glob­al leader in the Smart and Autonomous Vehi­cle Indus­tries (SAVI) clus­ter.

Eng. Aqeel Al Zarooni, Assis­tant Direc­tor Gen­er­al, Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Affairs Sec­tor at GCAA, said: “The GCAA is com­mit­ted to safe­ly inte­grat­ing inno­v­a­tive avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies into the UAE air­space.”

A cor­ner­stone of this advanced reg­u­la­to­ry phase is ini­ti­at­ing a GCAA Design Orga­ni­za­tion Approval (DOA) and Pro­duc­tion Orga­ni­za­tion Approval (POA). These des­ig­na­tions sig­ni­fy a high degree of trust in Archer’s engi­neer­ing and safe­ty man­age­ment sys­tems.

Through this pro­gram, Archer and the GCAA have made progress across eight work­streams crit­i­cal to com­mer­cial readi­ness, includ­ing air­craft cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, oper­a­tions, main­te­nance, flight crew train­ing, air­space, ver­ti­ports, secu­ri­ty and over­sight.

Mid­night is planned to enter ser­vice in Abu Dhabi with Abu Dhabi Avi­a­tion, Archer’s local oper­at­ing part­ner and one of the region’s lead­ing avi­a­tion com­pa­nies.

Mah­mood Al Hameli, Group CEO of Abu Dhabi Avi­a­tion, said: “This mile­stone reflects Abu Dhabi Aviation’s con­fi­dence in the UAE’s avi­a­tion ecosys­tem and Abu Dhabi’s readi­ness to embrace prac­ti­cal inno­va­tion.

“It rein­forces our com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the safe and respon­si­ble roll­out of advanced air mobil­i­ty sys­tems, unlock­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties for con­nec­tiv­i­ty, oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth across the Emi­rate.”