Archer Aviation

Archer said it received FAA acceptance of 100% of Midnight's Means of Compliance, calling it the first eVTOL company to reach that milestone. It also said its U.S. eIPP and UAE pilot programs were on track for 2026, with first passenger-carrying flights targeted that year.

Archer reports that its Midnight fleet has surpassed 700 test flights and that 70% of for-credit FAA certification flight test points have been completed with Midnight aircraft.

In April 2026 Archer formally closed Phase 3 of the FAA's 4-phase type certification process — the first eVTOL developer to do so. Phase 3 closure confirms that all Means of Compliance are accepted and unlocks Type Inspection Authorization (TIA), allowing FAA personnel and designated representatives to fly aboard Midnight during formal for-credit test flights. Archer has been running parallel Phase 4 groundwork for months; the next key milestone is a publicly demonstrated piloted transition flight (VTOL→forward-flight mode), which is slated for H2 2026.

On May 7, 2026, the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) transitioned Archer's Midnight into a Restricted Type Certificate (RTC) program — an established, streamlined pathway to limited commercial operations. Archer is the first eVTOL manufacturer to enter an RTC track with the GCAA. Progress has been made across eight commercial-readiness workstreams (aircraft certification, operations, maintenance, flight-crew training, airspace, vertiports, security, and oversight). The GCAA reaffirmed it remains on pace to certify Midnight as early as Q3 2026, making Abu Dhabi Aviation likely to host the first Midnight passenger revenue flights.

The U.S. Department of Transportation and FAA selected Archer's partners in Florida, New York, and Texas for the White House's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, clearing the way for Midnight trial operations in those states as soon as the second half of 2026.

Ahead of its June 26, 2026 virtual annual meeting, Archer filed a proxy asking stockholders to approve redomesticating from Delaware to Texas by conversion — citing Texas's business-friendly corporate-law framework, its deepening operational footprint there, and roughly $250K/year in franchise-tax savings. At the meeting the proposal failed to win the required majority of all outstanding shares: it drew about 234.1 million votes for and 44.5 million against but was undercut by roughly 201.8 million broker non-votes, so Archer remains incorporated in Delaware. Stockholders did elect both Class II director nominees and ratified PwC as auditor.

On July 16, 2026, Archer, BETA Technologies and Macquarie Capital launched ACES — America's Consortium for Electric Skyways — to build interoperable charging infrastructure at up to 250 airport and vertiport sites across the U.S. by 2030. The network uses BETA's chargers built on the Combined Charging Standard (CCS), the open standard endorsed by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association and broadly adopted across the eVTOL industry, with initial sites prioritized in California, Texas, Florida and New York where Archer and BETA plan to operate. Macquarie Capital advises the consortium and will help arrange the capital to fund site acquisition and construction.

On July 20, 2026 at the Farnborough International Airshow, Archer and Anduril unveiled a jointly-developed autonomous, dual-use series hybrid-electric tilt-rotor VTOL platform. Anduril's defense variant — 'Thunder', a Group 5 autonomous attack rotorcraft — is designed as a pilotless 'loyal wingman' to fly in formation with crewed AH-64 Apache and MV-75 helicopters, while Archer's commercial variant, 'Halo', is designed to carry roughly 400 kg of payload over 500+ km with fully autonomous takeoff and cruise. The companies said they have completed multiple test flights with full-scale surrogate aircraft, with first flight of the production Thunder planned for 2027. Archer shares jumped about 20% on the news.

Archer turned its Abu Dhabi Launch Edition into an active deployment program: Midnight completed an in-country UAE flight test campaign across the full eVTOL envelope, Archer began receiving payments from Abu Dhabi Aviation, and the company continued working with local regulators and training partners ahead of commercial operations.

Midnight completed a full transition flight in June 2024, flying at 100+ mph and becoming one of the largest eVTOL aircraft to achieve this milestone. Archer said Midnight was then in the implementation phase of FAA type certification and that piloted flight testing was on track to begin later that year.

Midnight production-intent aircraft completes its first hover flight (flight testing began October 2023). Opens a ~400,000-square-foot high-volume manufacturing facility in Covington, Georgia, designed to scale to up to 650 aircraft per year by 2030.

Partners with Stellantis (parent of Fiat, Chrysler, Jeep) to leverage its automotive manufacturing expertise for mass production of eVTOL aircraft. In June 2023 the partnership moved to an 'execution phase' under which Stellantis became Archer's exclusive contract manufacturer and committed up to ~$400M (≈$370M of manufacturing labor plus ~$20M of capital expenditures) toward scaling Midnight production at the Covington, Georgia plant through 2030 — on top of Stellantis's separate equity investments in Archer.

Goes public on NYSE via SPAC merger with Atlas Crest Investment Corp. (closed September 16, 2021) at a ~$3.8B equity valuation. United Airlines places a conditional pre-order worth up to $1B for 200 Midnight aircraft, with a $500M option for 100 more. Reveals the Maker demonstration aircraft.

Brett Adcock and Adam Goldstein (who previously co-founded Vettery, a hiring marketplace sold for $100M) launch Archer Aviation to develop eVTOL aircraft for urban air mobility.