Commercial Air Taxi Gets Govt Approval In This Country! Fly Away To Your Local Destination…

Joby Aviation, an air taxi company said that it has received a certification from the US’ Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

It can now begin its air-taxi operations commercially with a conventional airplane.

The certification gives the necessary clearance and is a significant achievement. 

Approval Earlier Than Expected

It will use the conventional aircraft “to refine systems and procedures in advance of launching eVTOL service targeted for 2024.”

Joby actually received the approval ahead of schedule since the completion of the process was originally expected in the second half of 2022

The FAA said it doesn’t set a schedule for applicants and therefore has no comment on the “characterization of the timing.”

Pending Certifications

However, the company still has more regulatory hurdles to clear before it can begin operations.

The FAA’s Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate is 1 among 3 of the regulatory approvals necessary for Joby’s planned launch of all-electric aerial ridesharing service in 2024.

The other two are a type certification and production certification.

Type certification means the aircraft meets all the FAA’s design and safety standards.

Production certification is the approval to begin manufacturing the aircraft

Testing To Begin

The certification would let the company operate its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft as an air taxi service across the United States.

The Part 135 certificate was issued on May 19 “after they completed the five-phase certification process”.

Bonny Simi, head of air operations and people at Joby and one of the company’s FAA-approved pilots, said that they would use the Part 135 certificate to begin testing out the back-end technology needed to operate what will be an Uber-like ride-hail service in the sky.

Relationship With Uber

Once the consumer app is developed, Joby will start testing it out with employees, followed by a customer pilot.

It will start with its own app but plans to be integrated into Uber’s app, and vice versa.

Both companies came to this agreement in 2020 when Joby bought Uber Elevate, Uber’s moonshot air taxi enterprise, and Uber invested $75 million into the startup.

The Air-Taxi

Joby has one aircraft on the certificate, a CIRRUS-SR22.

Its all-electric aircraft has six rotors and seats five, including the pilot.

It can take off vertically, like a helicopter, and then shift into forward flight using tilt rotors.

Joby claims that it can reach a top speed of 200mph, travel 150 miles on a single battery charge, and is 100 times quieter than a conventional aircraft.

Funding, Backers

Joby was founded by inventor JoeBen Bevirt, who started the company in 2009.

To date it has raised at least $690 million from a variety of investors, including the venture capital arms of Intel, Toyota, and JetBlue.

This funding helped finance the development of the company’s air taxi prototype, which has been conducting test flights at Joby’s private airfield in Northern California.

IPO

Last year, Joby announced it would go public via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC.

It merged with Reinvent Technology Partners, a “blank check” company run by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus.

It has a market capitalisation of $3.1 Bn.