ITA Airways 与 Archer Aviation 合作评估 eVTOL 空出租车服务

ITA Airways and Archer Aviation have signed an agreement to develop a network of fully electric air taxis in Italy with the Archer Midnight, the eVTOL of the US manufacturer, according to a joint statement released this Thursday (29). The alliance aims to deploy the service in major Italian cities, although no further details were provided. The only example is the route between Rome Fiumicino Airport and the centre of the capital: Archer estimates that the Midnight could cover it in less than 10 minutes, against about an hour by road. It is a piloted eVTOL with capacity for four passengers, designed for consecutive short hops with little recharge time between flights. Under the scheme, the airline will focus on integrating the new service with its network and on the end-to-end passenger experience. Operations would be left in the hands of “specialised partners” that the statement does not identify. In its legal note, Archer clarified that the agreements are conditional and subject to the signing of definitive contracts. Archer highlighted that ITA Airways is the first European airline to join its partner network. That network includes United Airlines in New York, Abu Dhabi Aviation and Ethiopian Airlines within the Launch Edition programme, and Soracle (the joint venture of Japan Airlines and Sumitomo) and Korean Air, with plans to acquire up to 100 Midnight aircraft each. It is not ITA's first move in advanced air mobility. In April 2022 it signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus to explore services with the CityAirbus NextGen, an alliance that in January 2024 was expanded to UrbanV and Enel. A year later, Airbus paused development of that eVTOL due to the lack of maturity of batteries. On Archer's side, the Midnight does not yet have FAA type certification. In April, the company reported that it was the first in the segment to close the third of the four phases of the process. This month it completed piloted flights in San Francisco Bay, including a leg of about 10 minutes between Oakland International Airport and the Marina District neighbourhood, although those operations were carried out with conventional take-offs and landings, in aeroplane mode. The Italian airline is 59% owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and 41% by Deutsche Lufthansa, which in May announced that it will exercise the option to raise its stake to 90% for €325 million, in a transaction expected to close in the first quarter of 2027. The agreement “represents an important step in assessing how electric air taxi services could complement our network and improve connections between airports, city centres and other strategic destinations," said Joerg Eberhart, CEO and general manager of ITA Airways, who added that the company is exploring “different solutions to identify the best possible product” for its customers. For Adam Goldstein, founder and CEO of Archer, “Italy has the regulatory leadership, the infrastructure and now the airline partner to make air taxis a reality." The executive recalled that Fiumicino surpassed 50 million passengers for the first time last year.