Middle East: Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation Advances Archer’s Pathway for Electric Air Taxi Deployment

Sau­di Arabia’s Gen­er­al Author­i­ty of Civ­il Avi­a­tion (GACA), has signed an agree­ment with Archer, where both par­ties will work togeth­er to accel­er­ate the deploy­ment of elec­tric air taxi oper­a­tions across the King­dom.

Under this col­lab­o­ra­tion, GACA and Archer plan to work to estab­lish a reg­u­la­to­ry path­way for the intro­duc­tion and scale-up of ser­vices. The frame­work is also planned to align with the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion rule­set, ensur­ing glob­al inter­op­er­abil­i­ty, safe­ty and oper­a­tional con­sis­ten­cy.

Addi­tion­al­ly, GACA is plan­ning to mod­el its reg­u­la­to­ry path­way around the eVTOL Imple­men­ta­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP) in the U.S. This approach will seek to enable ear­ly route test­ing and ser­vice intro­duc­tion in Riyadh, Jed­dah and key giga-projects such as Red Sea Glob­al.

Adam Gold­stein, Archer founder and CEO, said: “Sau­di Ara­bia is mov­ing with impres­sive speed and clar­i­ty, and we are hon­ored that GACA has cho­sen to col­lab­o­rate with Archer in this effort.

“Align­ing this cer­ti­fi­ca­tion work with the FAA and launch­ing ear­ly demon­stra­tion oper­a­tions in the King­dom will help us bring this pro­gram to life safe­ly and quick­ly. We look for­ward to work­ing hand-in-hand with GACA to make the King­dom one of the world’s first mar­kets to embrace eVTOL air­craft at scale.”

The agree­ment forms part of GACA’s ongo­ing efforts to accel­er­ate the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem in line with the AAM Roadmap and the objec­tives of the avi­a­tion pro­gram under the Nation­al Trans­port and Logis­tics Strat­e­gy (NTLS), rep­re­sent­ing anoth­er step in the Kingdom’s broad­er pro­gram to devel­op next-gen­er­a­tion air trans­port solu­tions.

As part of their part­ner­ship, GACA and Archer also plan to under­take a series of proof-of-con­cept demon­stra­tions and exper­i­men­tal flights to val­i­date reg­u­la­to­ry approach­es, sup­port infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment, and strength­en pub­lic excite­ment for elec­tric air taxi ser­vices.

Cap­tain Sulaiman bin Saleh Al-Muhaime­di, Exec­u­tive Vice Pres­i­dent for Avi­a­tion Safe­ty and Envi­ron­men­tal Sus­tain­abil­i­ty at GACA, stat­ed: “This MoU is an impor­tant step in advanc­ing the Kingdom’s vision for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty.

“By work­ing with glob­al part­ners such as Archer, we con­tin­ue to strength­en the reg­u­la­to­ry and oper­a­tional foun­da­tions need­ed to safe­ly inte­grate eVTOL air­craft into our avi­a­tion sys­tem. The ini­tia­tive sup­ports the AAM Roadmap and rein­forces the Kingdom’s posi­tion as a region­al leader in next-gen­er­a­tion air trans­port.”

GACA is respon­si­ble for deliv­er­ing world-lead­ing reg­u­la­to­ry ser­vices that enhance com­pe­ti­tion, safe­ty, secu­ri­ty and sus­tain­abil­i­ty in civ­il avi­a­tion glob­al­ly.

GACA coor­di­nates the imple­men­ta­tion of the Sau­di Avi­a­tion Pro­gram, which aims to trans­forms the entire Sau­di avi­a­tion ecosys­tem to become the num­ber one avi­a­tion sec­tor in the Mid­dle East, enabled by Vision 2030 and in line with the Kingdom’s Nation­al Trans­port and Logis­tics Strat­e­gy.

The Pro­gram is unlock­ing $100 bil­lion in pri­vate and gov­ern­ment invest­ment across the Kingdom’s air­ports, air­lines, and avi­a­tion sup­port ser­vices. The Pro­gram will extend Sau­di Arabia’s con­nec­tiv­i­ty to 250 des­ti­na­tions, triple annu­al pas­sen­ger traf­fic, estab­lish two glob­al long-haul con­nect­ing hubs, and increase air car­go capac­i­ty.