New York City — where you can get a dollar slice at 2am or a McDonald’s delivery in under 30 minutes, but still spend two hours crawling down the highway to catch a flight.
Archer Aviation wants to change that. The electric aircraft startup says its air taxis could one day fly passengers from Manhattan to nearby airports in five to 15 minutes.
The startup on Thursday unveiled its proposed air taxi network for the city in partnership with United Airlines, which would allow passengers to tack on an Archer ride to their traditional airline purchase.
“We’re starting with nine core nodes,” Adam Goldstein, co-founder and CEO of Archer, told me. We — along with Nikhil Goel, Archer’s chief commercial officer — sat comfortably on plush sofas at Casa Cipriani, a members only club at the bottom tip of the island of Manhattan, where we could watch helicopters land at the Downtown Skyport.
“So you have the three big international airports – JFK, La Guardia, Newark,” Goldstein continued. “You have the three big heliports, [including] the Downtown Skyport, and then the east and west side heliports. And then the three big regionals – Teterboro, Westchester, and Long Island Republic.”
Archer has shared a similar vision for air taxi networks in cities like Los Angeles. The company is still awaiting Federal Aviation Administration Approval for its aircraft – a five-seat eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle) dubbed Midnight – before it can even begin testing out the routes it has planned. Archer also still needs to get a pilot into one of its aircraft to test-fly it – so far Archer has only flown the plane autonomously with no humans inside. Its competitors – Joby Aviation and Beta Technologies – have done piloted flights.
Goldstein said he’s hopeful that Archer will achieve the necessary certifications in 2026, and told TechCrunch that Archer will have an update about piloted flights at its next earnings call. The company went public in 2021 via a special purpose acquisition merger, and has raised $3.36 billion to date per PitchBook via public and private raises.
In the meantime, Archer is laying the groundwork of setting up infrastructure and operations. And for that, partnerships are essential.
In NYC, United will help with things like aircraft storage, maintenance, charging setup, and setting up vertiports (landing pads for eVTOLs) at airports. Archer has also teamed up with the fixed-base operators that run the Manhattan helipads – Atlantic Aviation, Signature, and Modern Aviation – which Goldstein says will give Archer passenger access and help set up the aircraft charging infrastructure.
“What makes New York very compelling is it’s the number one helicopter commuting city in the world, outside of San Paolo,” Goel said. “And so you don’t have to squint very hard to imagine any of these helicopters that are flying by on Hudson simply replacing them with one of our aircraft. The routes are already there. The air traffic already knows how to work with them. The FBOs and the landing facilities are already there. And so there’s no systemic changes that are necessary.”
Archer’s plan is to start small, bringing up to five aircraft to NYC – and other cities – to practice running the routes before launching. Ten to 20 years down the line, the goal is to fly hundreds of aircraft across several cities. Archer last month began building Midnights at its production facility in Georgia, built in partnership with strategic investor Stellantis, and hopes to build 650 aircraft annually by 2030.
Aside from NYC and LA, Archer also plans to launch in San Francisco and Miami, but the timeline is still dependent on FAA certification, and the company hasn’t picked its first U.S. launch city.
Archer plans to launch an air taxi service in Abu Dhabi, where regulations are less strict, later this year. Goldstein said the NYC proposed network gives people a vision they can understand.
“We’re hoping people look at [Abu Dhabi] and say, ‘Oh, it’s real. How is New York gonna work?’”