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Electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft may still be a couple of years away from commercial air taxi operations in the United States, but eVTOL companies are actively staking their claims in one of the nation’s most desirable markets.
On April 17, eVTOL developer Archer Aviation and its strategic investor United Airlines announced plans for a proposed New York City air taxi network using Archer’s Midnight aircraft. Building on their 2022 announcement of an initial eVTOL route between the Downtown Manhattan Heliport (recently rebranded as Downtown Skyport) and Newark Liberty International Airport, the partners now envision seven additional nodes in the network, including John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, East 34th Street Heliport, West 30th Street Heliport, Westchester County Airport, Teterboro Airport and Republic Airport on Long Island.
United passengers would book Archer flights as an “add-on” to their airline flights, helping to reduce travel time to or from the airport. Archer and United did not specify in their announcement when they expect to launch flights on the various routes in the network. Archer CEO Adam Goldstein told The Air Current by email, “We’re taking a step by step approach for any new market we’re launching in, starting with a few aircraft on a few routes. We’ll ramp commercial operations upon receiving Type Certification from the FAA.”
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