Archer, United Airlines form joint eVTOL advisory board

 

Archer Aviation Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif., U.S.) and United Airlines (Chicago, Ill., U.S.) have announced the creation of a joint electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) advisory committee. The committee aims to advise Archer on maintenance and operational concepts for its all-electric composite aircraft.

The committee is chaired by Archer’s vice president of engineering, Dave Dennison and United’s managing director of United Express TechOps Strategy and Operations, Mauricio Angel. The following members of Archer and United round out the initial makeup of the committee:

• Jason Onorati, United’s director of maintenance programs
• Robert Bernard, United’s senior manager of maintenance programs
• Brian Johnson, United’s director of materials
• Monal Merchant, United’s senior manager, UAX engines and engineering
• Edward Espiritu, United’s senior manager, United Airlines Ventures
• Adam Goldstein, Archer’s chief executive officer (CEO)
• Tom Muniz, Archer’s chief operational officer (COO)
• Armando Chieffi, Archer’s maintainability lead

Each of the committee chairs bring proven experience in aviation operations to the group. The other committee members bring complementary skills in the areas of maintenance, customer satisfaction and fleet management.

“The formation of this advisory committee further demonstrates Archer’s commitment to building advanced infrastructure to support urban air mobility [UAM] at scale,” Adam Goldstein, CEO of Archer, states. “The committee is set up to leverage United’s experience with industry-leading operating strategies in commercial aviation, a key tenet of our business strategy. We understand that the adoption of UAM is about more than just the certification of our aircraft. United’s operational experience here will be invaluable as we work towards delivering aerial ridesharing at scale.”

United Airlines Ventures president, Michael Leskinen, adds that the advisory committee will help achieve both company’s shared goal of “sustainable urban air mobility, while addressing the scale and sophistication needed to operate successfully, and most importantly, delivering the high-quality user experience our customers require.” Leskinen believes this will be a vital step in enabling consumer adoption of eVTOL.

Over the long term, Archer’s goal is to work with United to create UAM fleet support leveraging logistics concepts and networks already in use, thereby creating operational efficiencies.