ITA Airways has signed an agreement with Archer Aviation to develop electric air taxi services in Italy with Archer’s four-passenger Midnight eVTOL aircraft, the companies announced Thursday. California-based Archer said the Italian scheduled carrier is its first European airline partner, after deals in the U.S. and the UAE.
This agreement is only a preliminary step. Archer said the partnership depends on the companies signing definitive agreements and meeting unspecified conditions, and that those agreements may never be completed or could end up with different terms. The companies did not disclose any aircraft orders, project timelines, cities where flights might operate, operators, or vertiport sites, and Archer declined to answer questions about the deal.
ITA (Alitalia’s successor) said it aims to tie eVTOL flights into its airline network while unspecified partners operate the aircraft. The Italian government’s Ministry of Economy and Finance owns 59% of the Rome-based airline, and German airline group Lufthansa owns the other 41%.
United Airlines, which in 2021 agreed to buy up to 200 Midnights pending FAA certification and further negotiations, is among Archer’s other airline partners. Southwest Airlines signed a memorandum of understanding with Archer in 2024 to plan air taxi networks in California, and in Japan, Soracle, a joint venture of Japan Airlines and Sumitomo, plans to fly Midnight.
Fiumicino to Downtown Rome in Minutes
Archer said its Midnight aircraft could cut the hour-long drive from Rome Fiumicino Leonardo da Vinci International Airport (LIRF) to the city center to a 10-minute flight. During piloted demonstration flights around San Francisco Bay earlier this month, Midnight flew from Oakland to San Francisco’s Marina District in about 10 minutes, the company said.
“Italy has the regulatory leadership, the infrastructure, and now the airline partner to make air taxis a reality,” Archer co-founder and CEO Adam Goldstein said in a company statement.
ITA CEO and general manager Joerg Eberhart called the agreement “an important step in assessing how electric air taxi services could complement our network,” adding that the airline is “exploring different solutions.” In 2022, ITA signed a memorandum of understanding with Airbus covering CityAirbus NextGen operations in Italy, though Airbus has since paused plans to bring the aircraft to market.
Rome has seen eVTOL plans form (and evaporate) before. German developer Volocopter, Aeroporti di Roma, and investment group Atlantia aimed to launch air taxi service there by 2024, and Volocopter made Italy’s first crewed eVTOL flight at a LIRF test vertiport in October 2022. The service never launched, and Volocopter entered insolvency in late 2024 before Diamond Aircraft bought its assets.
Archer has an indirect tie to that vertiport, too. Start-up operator Future Flight Global (FFG), which holds an agreement with Archer that could cover up to 116 Midnights, partnered last year with UrbanV, the vertiport’s developer, on plans for Rome test flights. Archer declined to say whether FFG has a role in the ITA partnership.
Certification Pending
Air taxi service in Italy would require EASA to validate Midnight’s FAA type certificate, which the aircraft has yet to earn. In a June 2023 interview with the Financial Times, Goldstein criticized EASA’s approach to type certification as being excessively rigid, saying that the European regulator “risks shutting down the electric aircraft market.”
Archer had long targeted FAA certification by the end of 2026 but recently stopped citing that goal. In August, the company said it had reached the fourth and final phase of the FAA certification process and expected to start for-credit flight testing with the agency this year.
The company is pursuing a streamlined route in the UAE, where the General Civil Aviation Authority in May moved Midnight onto a restricted type certification track meant to allow limited commercial operations with local operator Abu Dhabi Aviation. Since late February, the U.S.-Iran conflict has brought missile and drone attacks and airspace restrictions to the Gulf, adding uncertainty to those plans. Neither Archer nor Joby, a rival eVTOL developer, has started carrying air taxi passengers in the UAE, where Joby has been preparing to launch air taxi services in Dubai.
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