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On-call flying taxis just took a step closer to reality. Joby, a manufacturer of electric vertical takeoff-and-landing aircraft (eVTOLs), just announced that the Federal Aviation Administration has given it the green light to develop software that could lead to a consumer-facing app.
The suite of programs, which the company has dubbed “ElevateOS,” will include “pilot tools, operations and schedule management software, a mobile-first rider app, and an intelligent matching engine,” the company said in its announcement. “The matching engine is similar to those used by ride-hailing apps today and pairs passengers with available aircraft and landing infrastructure to deliver journeys that are as efficient as possible.” In its announcement Thursday, Joby said that its ElevateOS will give it an edge as things kick off — hopefully as soon as next year.
“The air taxi service we plan to deliver isn’t like any sort of air travel that’s existed before,” said Eric Allison, Joby’s chief product officer, in a statement. “We expect travelers to book on-demand and to be boarding an aircraft just minutes later, much like the experience of using ground-based ridesharing today.
The latest iteration of the flying taxi industry, which has been racing into development for a few years now, envisions a world where people fly across cities as easily as they drive. Last year, Quartz profiled the flying taxi company Archer, and the company said at the time, “at launch, passengers can expect to pay a price comparable to the cost of a vehicle ride-sharing service to the same destination.” Big aviation players like United Airlines, which announced in 2022 that it had put a down payment on 100 of Archer’s vehicles, and Boeing, which just invested $70 million into its Whisk subsidiary, are eager to get in on the business as well.