A cab ride from Midtown Manhattan to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport today costs about $100, takes between 45 minutes and two hours—traffic depending—and includes up-close views of the soot-covered trash dotting the Van Wyck Expressway.
Paul Sciarra, executive chairman of Joby Aviation, thinks it’s time for an upgrade: A traveler will soon be able to make the same journey in less than 10 minutes, he says, all while enjoying views from more than a thousand feet up in the sky. Eventually, it will cost about the same, too.
Air taxis are closer than ever to becoming a reality thanks to a confluence of new technology, competition, and regulatory developments. Starting this summer, a series of federally sanctioned pilot projects across the U.S. will let Joby and several other companies developing a new breed of all-electric aircraft start carrying cargo, then passengers, in real-world tests. If successful, the trials could open “another axis of transportation” that can bypass physical geography such as mountains and human-created boundaries like traffic, says Sciarra.
The government’s online announcement of the pilot program included a short video clip from The Jetsons, the 1960s cartoon series that instilled flying cars in the public imagination. Outside of cartoon land, however, the notion of boarding an exotic new flying machine—particularly one not yet certified by the Federal Aviation Administration—might not reassure a wary public.
The funky-looking vehicles that Sciarra envisions buzzing to JFK are called eVTOLs (short for “electric vertical takeoff and landing”) and combine the traits of helicopters, airplanes, and drones. Proponents hope that using them will be as easy as hopping into an Uber.
Six electric rotors lift Joby’s aircraft vertically, then tilt sideways and propel it forward, generating a fraction of the noise of a traditional helicopter. It can carry four passengers and a pilot up to 100 miles at altitudes as low as 1,000 feet, roughly the height of the Chrysler Building. “If you can operate in places where helicopters have not been able to operate—whether because of safety concerns, or whether because of noise concerns—you fundamentally shift what is possible,” Sciarra says.
The Santa Cruz, Calif.–based company, which has a market cap of $7.6 billion, is preparing for real-world tests in New York, New Jersey, Texas, and Florida this year. Backed by Toyota, Uber, and Delta Air Lines, Joby will initially ferry cargo, but Sciarra expects to begin tests with passengers on a noncommercial (read: nonpaying) basis in the fall or winter.
Another eVTOL-maker, Archer Aviation, of San Jose, has a roster of investors that includes United Airlines and a market cap of $3.7 billion. It hopes to begin commercial passenger operations of its 12-rotor Midnight eVTOL in time for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in July 2028. Adam Goldstein, Archer’s founder and CEO, says L.A. is well-suited for air taxis because Angelenos make so many short trips—often under 20 miles—that take over an hour by car but could be covered much faster by air.
In the meantime, the government has selected Archer to conduct tests in Florida, Texas, and New York/New Jersey through the Trump administration’s cumbersomely named Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing and Advanced Air Mobility Integration Pilot Program, or EIPP. The three-year program lets selected companies and states test eVTOLs before obtaining FAA certification first. (Aircraft must be going through the certification process to participate.)
Beta Technologies, backed by Amazon and GE Aerospace, completed the first EIPP flights in Maryland and Virginia on July 10. It’s testing in seven of eight announced pilot projects, spanning a total of 26 states. The Vermont-based company is initially focusing on an electric aircraft that takes off and lands like a conventional airplane, while developing an eVTOL in parallel.
Wisk Aero, a subsidiary of Boeing that’s focused on fully autonomous eVTOLs, will test its aircraft in a Texas EIPP project.
For air taxis to take off, the public needs to get on board—and soaring into the sky in experimental tech will be a hard sell for many. The EIPP’s work-around aimed at speeding up eVTOL development may play into skepticism or downright fear of a new mode of airborne transport.
“There is a certain aspect of it being new, or untested, that maybe some folks are a bit skeptical of. That’s understandable,” says Andres Sheppard, an analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald. But Sheppard notes that the design of eVTOLs, which have multiple, independently powered rotors, is actually safer than that of a traditional helicopter, with its one overhead rotor that leaves the aircraft vulnerable to a single point of failure. “Helicopters today are dinosaurs,” he says.
Traditional combustion-powered helicopters are more complex machines than electric aircraft and require extensive maintenance, which increases risk, says Mattia Celli, a partner at consulting firm Bain & Co. “There is the real safety, and there is the perceived safety,” he says.
Archer, Joby, and Beta say their aircraft are undergoing extensive real-world testing, including through the EIPP, with specially trained pilots at the controls. All three companies are in the final stages of earning FAA approval, but it’s not lost on anyone that doing so would require the agency to certify a new category of civil aircraft for the first time in decades.
If—or when—air taxis gain FAA approval, they will be entering increasingly crowded skies.
Unlike jet airplanes, which fly above 35,000 feet and are separated from one another by vast distances, air taxis will likely fly no higher than 4,000 feet on short routes where space between the aircraft could get tight.
Air traffic control will become an issue when “you’re talking about having hundreds of these flying in a city,” says Raymond James analyst Savanthi Syth. “That’s when you need a more automated system.”
Last year Joby acquired Blade Air Mobility, a provider of helicopter transportation services, giving Joby hands-on experience with air traffic control and commercial operations.
Blade operates multiple heliports in New York, and it’s flown as many as 200 flights a day there this summer, says Blade CEO Rob Wiesenthal. That volume has allowed Blade to drop the price of a helicopter trip to JFK to $195, or about the cost of a premium experience like Uber Black. Analysts say eVTOL prices need to fall to roughly the same as a standard ride-share to gain traction.
Sciarra argues air taxis could be transformative, reshaping where people choose to live, how easily they reach jobs, and their access to doctors’ offices and hospitals. That’s on top of making the dreaded airport commute a bit more pleasant. “These are generational changes,” he says.
This article appears in the August/September 2026 issue of Fortune.
