LONDON – Joby Aviation, a California-based aerospace company expanding in the eVTOL sector has been granted an Air Carrier Certificate by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) thus allowing the company to commence on-demand commercial air taxi operations on the eVTOL platform.
Joby Aviation has achieved its desired step by this approval of operations certificate by the FAA, which allows the company to now achieve its target of commercializing its electrical ariel taxi services by mid-2024.
Although this license has given Joby the energy to work further dedicatedly, it is still a long way to go before the first commercial operations with the actual passenger traffic can be made operational using eVTOL.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s part 135 Air Carrier Certificate is the first step that Joby has achieved with their dedicated efforts and ambition. However, this is the first out of three parts certifications.
The further subsections of Part 135 will include a Type Certificate and a Production Certificate thus allowing Joby Aviation to operate eVTOL air taxis in the United States.
Part 135 is a mandatory certification as laid out by the regulatory body FAA for the company, which allows them to operate non-scheduled air charter services.
Part 135 also envelopes all the mandatory requisites of the Federal Aviation Regulation which establishes Safe Operating Procedures and policies for charter jets and para-aviation services coded under ‘on-demand’ services.
Bringing Rideshare in Skies to Reality
As the granting of Part 135 has given a new boost for the Joby to fulfill its aim to bringing eVTOL to the reality, the Part 135, as quoted by the TechCrunch report, will be used by the Joby Aviation “to exercise the operations and customer technology platforms that will underpin our multi-modal rise-sharing services, while also refining our procedures to ensure safe and seamless journeys for our customers.”
The basis of Joby’s ridesharing is similarly based on the platform of Uber, which allows pilots to analyze and see where the next ride will be originating from.
Joby at present has been investing substantially in developing this technology with dedicated resource allocation in the research and development area.
Speaking on this occasion, a spokeswoman at the Joby Aviation told TechCrunch that “once the consumer app is completed, the business will begin testing it with staff members, followed by a customer pilot.”
Joby Aviation
The California based venture-backed aerospace company determined to develop and bring the eVTOL dream to the reality, has been making news around the eVTOL market since 2015, when it was developing a prototype subscale of its first eVTOL aircraft, which was further moved into a full-scale unmanned prototype in early 2017, bringing it to the reality with production commencing in 2019.
With a substantial backup in Series B funding in 2018 worth US$100 million from leading backers like Capricorn Investment Group, which also backs various bigwigs like Intel Capital, Toyota AI Ventures, jet Blue Technology Ventures, and Tesla/SpaceX.
In late 2020, Joby Aviation acquired the Uber Air Taxi Divisions Elevate platform along with a further capital infusion of US$75 million investment from Uber.
Today, Joby Aviation is a publicly-traded company with a market capitalization worth US$3.1 billion in the electric air vehicle business.
