Electric air taxis are finally taking flight — just not with passengers

It was the perfect day for an electric air taxi demonstration — albeit one without passengers.

On Monday, an electric aircraft from Joby Aviation took off from JFK Airport for a flight demonstrating the company’s future air taxi route to Manhattan. The aircraft — egg-shaped cabin, six tilt-rotor propellers, electric motor — made its way west along the Brooklyn shore before turning north toward the city. Approximately 14 minutes after takeoff, it touched down at the heliport at West 30th Street, completing its historic journey.

You could tell it was a momentous occasion based on the number of references the assembled officials made to the 60-year-old animated television show The Jetsons. (I counted at least three.) But the demonstration was also an indication of the long road ahead before these electric air taxis start carrying passengers as part of a commercial ridehail service.

Joby’s aircraft can carry five people, including one pilot, but for today’s demonstration, it was pilot-only. Much like every air taxi provider in operation today, Joby is still waiting to receive official FAA certification for passenger services. And after years of winding its way through the regulatory process, the company is hesitant to predict when it may finally reach the finish line.

“The path to type certification is long,” Bonny Simi, Joby’s president of operations, told me, referring to the Federal Aviation Administration’s final approval for a new type of aircraft. “We’re well on that journey, very well on that journey, and the FAA has been absolutely fabulous.”

But when asked when Joby will receive its final certification, Simi demurred. “I can’t speak on behalf of them,” she said. She referenced the recently launched eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), which is a White House-backed program aimed at accelerating the safe deployment of electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft in the US, as one of the current unknowns surrounding the safe launch of Joby’s air taxi business.

“What’s interesting is what will this eIPP allow in terms of operations?” she said. “So, they have very expressly intended for it to have some type of commercial operation. We don’t yet know. We’re working together with the FAA to see what that might be. So, TBD.”

Notably, Joby’s first passenger service actually won’t be in the US at all. Later this year, the company plans on launching its first passenger-approved air taxis in Dubai, in partnership with the city’s Roads and Transport Authority. The FAA has been more cautious in its approach to advanced air mobility, as it’s known, than its counterparts in the United Arab Emirates.

“The regulatory hurdles were a little lighter, not unsafe by any stretch of the imagination,” Simi said of the authorities in Dubai. “But the whole government was leaning in.”

While it waits in regulatory purgatory, Joby needs to demonstrate to local officials and aviation authorities that its technology is up to snuff. As such, the company conducted multiple flights in New York this week, one at JFK and another at the helipad in Lower Manhattan. At JFK, we watched Joby’s air taxi take off vertically, and then after transitioning to forward flight, quickly fly away into the distance.

Joby says its air taxis are quieter than helicopters, and because they’re electric, they produce zero emissions. Simi described the noise profile as “like leaves in the wind” — but you wouldn’t know, thanks to a helicopter hovering overhead during takeoff. The goal is to connect Manhattan to JFK Airport in under 10 minutes, rather than an hourlong car trip. Joby owns helicopter company Blade, which flies similar routes, and maintains partnerships with Delta Air Lines and Uber.

Joby has flown over 50,000 miles in dozens of flights over the past nine years, Simi said. The company is one of the few to have demonstrated the ability to transition from vertical takeoff to forward flight, and also one of the few to use pilots in its flight demonstrations, she added.

“Do you think the FAA would allow us to do this if we had just started doing it?” Simi asked. “So, we really are far ahead in terms of the amount of experience we have and the amount of operations we have.”

Joby went public in 2021 and recently expanded into defense contracting in order to bring in revenue before it gets the green light for commercial operation. The company eventually plans on selling its aircraft to other operators, in addition to running its own air taxi service. In addition to New York and Dubai, Joby has said it plans on flying air taxis in Miami and Los Angeles, the latter in time for the 2028 Olympics. (Joby rival Archer Aviation was selected as the official eVTOL partner of the LA Olympics.)

Will Joby have its final approval in time? That’s the hope, Simi said. And when it does finally take flight, you might just hear it happen — but only briefly.

“The loudest it is is just as it takes off,” Simi said. “So you heard it for like three seconds. And that’s the absolute loudest. And it’s just like a whoosh.”