U.S: Archer Aviation Selects Site in Georgia for Manufacturing Facility

Archer Avi­a­tion announced this week that a site in Geor­gia adja­cent to the Cov­ing­ton Munic­i­pal Air­port has been select­ed for its man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty, reports a press release. This is a key next step for the U.S‑based eVTOL com­pa­ny.

Archer plans to ini­tial­ly build a 350,000 square-foot facil­i­ty, capa­ble of pro­duc­ing up to 650 air­craft per year, which is expect­ed to cre­ate over 1,000 jobs dur­ing the long term.

Con­struc­tion should be com­plet­ed in the first half of 2024, with ini­tial pro­duc­tion expect­ed to begin lat­er that year. The facil­i­ty is capa­ble of being expand­ed by an addi­tion­al 550,000 sq. ft, esti­mat­ed to sup­port the man­u­fac­tur­ing of up to 2,300 air­craft per year.

The release explains, “In select­ing the loca­tion for its first pro­duc­tion facil­i­ty, Archer com­plet­ed a com­pre­hen­sive sur­vey of poten­tial sites across the Unit­ed States. Key con­sid­er­a­tions includ­ed the avail­abil­i­ty of tal­ent in the local labour mar­ket, util­i­ty avail­abil­i­ty, abil­i­ty to con­duct seam­less flight test oper­a­tions, con­struc­tion costs, and logis­tics.”

The com­pa­ny intends to invest USD118 mil­lion over the next 10 years and will receive an incen­tive pack­age which includes land con­veyance, tax incen­tives and Geor­gia REBA grant, totalling 33 per­cent of the cap­i­tal invest­ment com­mit­ment. Archer has entered into a Let­ter of Intent (LOI) with Syn­ovus Bank, the largest bank head­quar­tered in Geor­gia, to obtain financ­ing to sup­port the project.

Adam Gold­stein, Archer’s CEO, com­ment­ed, “The U.S. has long led the world in aero­space tech­nol­o­gy, and Geor­gia has played a vital role in that indus­try. Our eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy can trans­form how urban and rur­al com­mu­ni­ties live and com­mute and this fac­to­ry can cre­ate path­ways to high­ly skilled man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs and oth­er lad­ders of social and eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty.”

Gov­er­nor Bri­an P. Kemp

Geor­gia Gov­er­nor Bri­an P. Kemp added, “Our estab­lished lead­er­ship in the aero­space indus­try was essen­tial to land­ing Archer Avi­a­tion in New­ton Coun­ty. They can take advan­tage of our sig­na­ture work­force train­ing pro­gram Quick Start to help fill, in the long-term, over 1,000 jobs in Cov­ing­ton.”

Back­ground

Home to more than 800 aero­space com­pa­nies, Geor­gia main­tains a robust aero­space edu­ca­tion pipeline, with a dozen high schools that offer train­ing in the field, five tech­ni­cal col­leges with avi­a­tion pro­grams and sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ties offer­ing degrees in aero­space engi­neer­ing.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.archer.com/

(top image: Archer Avi­a­tion)