Sometime in the next few months, if two California startups hit their targets, a paying passenger will strap into a six-rotor electric aircraft, lift off from a rooftop vertiport, and fly across a major city in roughly the time it takes to order coffee. That flight will not happen because the technology suddenly appeared. It will happen because the Federal Aviation Administration spent the better part of three years building a regulatory framework that did not previously exist, and because lithium-ion battery cells originally engineered for electric cars have reached energy densities that finally make short urban flights practical.
As of June 2026, the two frontrunners, Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation, each hold FAA Part 135 air carrier certificates, the same class of operating approval used by charter airlines and air ambulance services. Both companies have publicly stated they intend to begin carrying passengers in 2025 or 2026. But an air carrier certificate is only one piece of the puzzle. The aircraft themselves still need type certificates, the FAA’s formal declaration that a specific design is safe to fly commercially. That distinction, between an approved operator and an approved aircraft, is the single most important thing to understand about where the industry stands right now.
The FAA built a new rulebook from scratch
In October 2024, the FAA published a landmark final rule titled “Integration of Powered-Lift: Pilot Certification and Operations.” The rule created an entirely new regulatory category for aircraft that take off and land vertically but cruise on wings, a class of machine that did not fit neatly into existing helicopter or airplane rules. It established pilot training standards, defined operating environments, and introduced a 10-year Special Federal Aviation Regulation (SFAR No. 120) that lets the agency adapt requirements as real-world flight data accumulates.
That 10-year window is deliberate. Rather than waiting a decade or more to write permanent rules based on technology that is still evolving, the FAA chose an iterative approach: set initial standards, let operators fly under them, collect safety data, and refine. The agency’s own description of the rule names specific commercial use cases it envisions under the framework, including urban passenger transport, air ambulance service, and cargo delivery. In regulatory terms, the FAA is treating these aircraft not as experimental novelties but as a new class of commercial aviation embedded in the same safety universe that governs helicopters and regional airlines.
On the aircraft-specific side, the FAA has published special class airworthiness criteria for the Joby JAS4-1, a five-seat, all-electric, tilting-rotor design with a published cruise speed of 200 mph and a target range of roughly 100 miles. Publishing airworthiness criteria does not grant a type certificate. It defines the engineering rulebook the aircraft must satisfy: structural loads, flight control redundancy, crashworthiness, lightning protection, software integrity, and dozens of other standards. Think of it as the exam syllabus. Joby still has to pass the exam.
Part 135 certificates: real but incomplete
Both Joby and Archer cleared a significant regulatory gate by securing Part 135 certificates. Archer announced its certificate in a public filing in 2024; Joby secured its own Part 135 approval as well. These certificates allow a company to sell seats to passengers, but only on aircraft that already hold type certificates and meet all maintenance and inspection requirements.
The analogy that keeps circulating in the industry is apt: a Part 135 certificate is like a driver’s license for a car that has not rolled off the assembly line yet. The operator is approved in principle. The vehicle still has to clear its own hurdles. And beyond type certification, the FAA must separately grant a production certificate, approving the manufacturer’s assembly line, quality systems, and supplier oversight before aircraft can be delivered at scale. Neither company has publicly confirmed completing that step.
The battery breakthrough that changed the math
For years, the knock on electric air taxis was simple: batteries were too heavy. An aircraft that takes off vertically burns enormous energy in the first few minutes of flight, and if the battery pack weighs too much, there is nothing left for passengers or range. What changed is that lithium-ion cell technology, driven by tens of billions of dollars in electric vehicle investment, pushed energy densities past thresholds that make short urban flights viable.
Joby has disclosed that its aircraft uses a custom battery pack, and the company’s partnership with Toyota, which invested roughly $894 million in Joby through multiple rounds, reflects the direct pipeline between automotive battery engineering and aviation. Archer’s Midnight aircraft relies on a battery system the company says supports back-to-back short flights with rapid recharging between trips. Neither company has published the exact cell chemistry or energy density of its certified pack, and for good reason: those specifications are part of the type certification process and subject to FAA review for thermal runaway behavior, crash containment, and cycle life under aviation-specific stress profiles.
The leap from an EV battery to an aviation-certified battery is not trivial. Automotive cells must survive years of charging cycles and temperature swings, but aviation cells face additional demands: they must be tested for behavior during hard landings, rapid decompression at altitude, and fire containment in an enclosed cabin. The FAA’s airworthiness criteria for powered-lift aircraft include specific battery safety provisions that go well beyond anything required for a car. Still, the underlying chemistry is shared, and the manufacturing scale of the EV industry has driven down costs and driven up performance in ways that pure aviation R&D budgets never could have matched alone.
Where and when flights could begin
Joby has publicly targeted initial commercial operations in Dubai, where it signed an agreement with the UAE’s Roads and Transport Authority, and in several U.S. cities including Los Angeles and New York. Archer has announced plans for routes in Los Angeles, Chicago, and the New York metro area, with vertiport partnerships already in development. Both companies have framed 2025 and 2026 as their target windows for first passenger flights.
But no primary FAA document names a specific launch date for any eVTOL operator. The agency controls the type certification clock, not the manufacturers or their investors, and that process has historically taken years even for conventional aircraft. The FAA’s advanced air mobility page confirms the sequence: rulemaking first, then type certification, then production approval, then commercial service. Anyone evaluating company announcements about “launch readiness” should measure those claims against this sequence to see which steps are actually complete.
The global picture adds context. China’s EHang received a type certificate for its two-seat EH216-S from the Civil Aviation Administration of China in 2023 and has conducted passenger-carrying demonstration flights. In Europe, the picture is more turbulent: Germany’s Lilium filed for insolvency in late 2024 before being acquired and restructured, and Volocopter has faced repeated delays and funding challenges. The U.S. regulatory path, while slower than some competitors hoped, is arguably the most methodical, and an FAA type certificate carries weight with aviation authorities worldwide.
What to watch for next
The most reliable indicators of progress will not come from press releases or investor presentations. They will come from formal FAA actions: the issuance of type certificates to Joby and Archer, the granting of production approvals, and any updates the agency makes to SFAR No. 120 as early operational data flows in. The FAA could initially impose conservative limits, requiring two pilots per flight, restricting operations to clear weather, or capping daily flight hours, and then adjust as reliability data builds. Or it could tighten requirements if safety incidents emerge.
For passengers, the practical questions remain open. Ticket prices for early routes have been discussed in the range of $3 to $5 per mile by company executives, which would put a 30-mile trip somewhere around $100 to $150, roughly competitive with a black car service but far faster. Flight times for urban routes are projected at 10 to 20 minutes for distances that might take an hour or more by car. Whether those economics hold up in practice depends on aircraft utilization rates, battery replacement costs, vertiport throughput, and a dozen other variables that will only become clear once regular service begins.
The regulatory scaffolding is in place. The aircraft are in late-stage testing. The batteries, born in the electric vehicle industry and re-engineered for the sky, have reached the performance window that makes the concept viable. What remains is the hardest part of any new technology: proving, under the FAA’s watch, that it works safely enough to carry the public. That proof will come one signed certificate at a time.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
