The Latest on Advanced Air Mobility: Summer Roundup

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) hit a major inflection point this summer. Archer Aviation has agreed to acquire three of Boeing’s aerospace subsidiaries, and Joby Aviation is posting its strongest Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification progress yet. The first live emergency medical electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) missions were completed in rural North Carolina, new AAM-dedicated infrastructure is taking shape in Florida, and autonomous cargo delivery is scaling quickly across the U.S. Overseas, commercial AAM passenger service is expanding too.

Here’s a closer look at each development and what it signals for the months ahead.

What Is AAM?

AAM is the umbrella term for a new category of highly automated aircraft — most notably eVTOL vehicles — designed to operate below 5,000 feet and fill transportation gaps that traditional aviation can’t reach efficiently. That includes urban air taxis, rural medical transport, cargo delivery, and increasingly, defense applications. The sector depends on three things moving in parallel: certified aircraft, airspace integration, and ground infrastructure.

These three pillars are advancing all at once:

A Big Move in eVTOL Consolidation

In one of the biggest moves the sector has seen, Archer Aviation signed a definitive agreement to acquire Boeing’s Wisk Aero, SkyGrid, and Insitu subsidiaries in an all-stock transaction. Boeing will take an equity stake of nearly 20% in Archer and a board seat, along with a cross-licensing arrangement that keeps Boeing’s access to Wisk’s autonomous flight technology intact for its own commercial and defense programs.

The move also signals a strategic pivot for Boeing. Rather than directly owning early-stage eVTOL and drone development, Boeing is choosing to maintain technology access through licensing while offloading capital-intensive research and development (R&D) — a sign that even major aerospace primes are rethinking how they participate in AAM.

FAA Certification Is Entering Its Final Stages

Certification remains the most significant hurdle for commercial AAM operations — and this quarter brought real movement.

Joby Aviation reported its strongest quarterly progress yet in the fifth and final stage of FAA Type Certification in its Q2 2026 shareholder letter. This stage — known as “Show & Verify” — involves demonstrating through FAA-reviewed testing that its aircraft meet the requirements needed for certification. As of July 31, Joby had completed 20% of this stage’s work. The company currently has five aircraft flying, with 12 more in production, and expects its first eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP) flights to begin in Texas this September — a direct precursor to commercial passenger service.

Archer Aviation is now in Phase 4 of the FAA certification process for the Midnight aircraft, meaning the FAA has formally accepted 100% of Archer’s “Means of Compliance” — the engineering metrics, simulation rules, and mathematical formulas the aircraft must prove out — and the company is now physically testing components against those agreed-upon standards. The timeline matters: Archer is the official Air Taxi Provider for the 2028 LA Olympics and is building out a vertiport network across Los Angeles to support Midnight service — giving the company a hard deadline to have both the aircraft and infrastructure ready.

Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation are the only U.S. eVTOL manufacturers to have reached Stage 4 of the FAA’s certification process. BETA Technologies’ ALIA and Wisk Aero’s Generation 6 are following in Stage 3, with Wisk now part of Archer Aviation. Globally, EHang’s EH216-S is the only eVTOL to have received a full Type Certificate, issued by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The FAA has also continued refining the regulatory framework itself, setting differentiated safety levels for powered-lift eVTOL aircraft based solely on weight and passenger count — a reversal of an earlier proposal that would have also factored in commercial versus private use. That puts the FAA somewhat at odds with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA): a four-passenger eVTOL like Archer’s Midnight or Joby’s S4 would be certified under the FAA’s Level 2 category, allowing one catastrophic failure per 100 million flight hours — while EASA’s stricter Enhanced category, required for commercial passenger operations over urban areas, demands a standard 10 times higher: one failure per billion flight hours.

AAM Is Already Operating in the Real World

In Hyde County, North Carolina, Pivotal, Hyde County EMS, and Code Blue Resources completed the first live 911 missions using an eVTOL aircraft. The Pivotal BlackFly — classified by the FAA as a Part 103 ultralight — delivered advanced life support to patients roughly 20 minutes faster than ground ambulances could reach them.

Hyde County’s marshes and sound waters make ground transport slow and unreliable, making it a near-perfect proving ground for AAM’s core value proposition: reaching places traditional aviation and ground transport struggle to serve efficiently.

In China, EHang’s EH216-S has been carrying paid passengers on ticketed flights in Guangzhou, Hefei, and Shenzhen since 2023, including a cross-border route to Hong Kong that remains live and bookable today. EHang has also expanded its footprint to 23 countries across five continents, including a recent human-carrying demonstration flight in Kazakhstan carrying the country’s Minister of Transport, showing the aircraft operating in a wide range of climates and regulatory environments. In August 2026, the company launched a “Global Fast Track Program” aimed at compressing the path from regulatory approval to commercial launch in new international markets from years to months, with Sri Lanka as the first country to adopt it.

Cargo delivery is scaling too. Zipline runs two aircraft: a long-range fixed-wing platform used for rural and medical deliveries up to 120 miles round-trip, and a newer hovering platform built for U.S. suburbs and cities, which carries up to 8 pounds and lowers a self-steering “droid” from roughly 300 feet to drop packages within about two feet of a customer’s doorstep. Already the world’s largest autonomous delivery operator with more than 2 million commercial deliveries completed, Zipline announced a strategic partnership with Uber in August, bringing drone delivery to Uber Eats customers in existing Zipline markets like Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, with both companies targeting one million drone deliveries a day by 2029.

AAM Infrastructure Is Expanding

Aircraft aren’t the only thing advancing — the ground infrastructure to support them is catching up too. Florida is building out dedicated AAM testing capacity, with the SunTrax facility along the I-4 corridor establishing the country’s first dedicated aerial test track for AAM, giving companies a controlled environment to run FAA certification testing outside of commercial airspace — addressing one of the practical bottlenecks that has slowed flight testing industry-wide.

That infrastructure is already attracting manufacturers. AIR, an Israeli eVTOL developer, announced a partnership with the Florida Department of Transportation to establish its U.S. headquarters and an eVTOL production and flight operations hub at SunTrax — making AIR the first AAM company to both manufacture and operate eVTOL aircraft in Florida.

What Does This Mean for the Rest of 2026?

Three trends are worth watching heading into the fall:

1. Consolidation may likely continue. The Archer-Boeing deal may not be the last major acquisition this year, as companies race to combine autonomy, aircraft, and defense capabilities under one roof.
2. Certification is entering its final stretch for the leaders. With Joby and Archer both advancing through FAA certification, and the FAA and EASA settling on different safety thresholds, the path to commercial service may vary significantly by region.
3. Real-world use cases are proving out the mission. Hyde County’s medical flights, EHang’s growing international footprint, and Zipline’s commercial-scale cargo operations all show AAM already delivering on its core promise — reaching people and places conventional transport struggles to serve.
4. Infrastructure is becoming a competitive advantage. As more manufacturers look for places to test and build, states with purpose-built AAM infrastructure — like Florida’s SunTrax — may pull ahead in attracting production and flight operations.

Turning Ambition Into Certified Aircraft

For the innovators leading this industry, finding the right engineering partner is critical to getting an aircraft certified and in the skies. Performance Software’s teams bring nearly three decades of avionics domain expertise, built through work with leading Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and major suppliers, to AAM manufacturers navigating FAA requirements. Increasingly, that experience is paired with AI-assisted engineering where it fits the program, helping teams move faster through development without sacrificing the rigor certification demands.

Connect with an expert today to see how Performance Software can support your next AAM milestone.