Joby Aviation Announces FAA Authorization for ElevateOS Air Taxi Software
SANTA CRUZ, CA—Joby Aviation, a company pioneering electric air taxis for commercial passenger service, has received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) authorization to use its in-house developed software suite, ElevateOS. The comprehensive system is designed to facilitate high-tempo, on-demand air taxi operations.
ElevateOS includes a pilot app, operations and schedule management software, a consumer-friendly rider app, and an intelligent matching engine similar to those used by ride-hailing apps. This engine efficiently pairs passengers with available aircraft and landing infrastructure. Joby plans to utilize ElevateOS for its own air taxi operations and offer it to select partners as part of a broader service package.
With the FAA's Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate granted over two years ago, Joby has already been testing ElevateOS in real-world scenarios. This includes providing Joby team members with an on-demand passenger service, automating passenger matching, processing payments for chartered flights, and integrating its pilot app, rider app, and back-end operations software.
Joby has been developing and refining these tools since acquiring Uber Elevate, Uber's air taxi division, in 2021. Uber Elevate previously launched and operated UberCopter, the first on-demand, multi-modal air taxi service in New York City, in 2019 using traditional helicopters bookable via the Uber app.
Eric Allison, Chief Product Officer at Joby and former Head of Uber Elevate, stated, “The air taxi service we plan to deliver isn’t like any sort of air travel that’s existed before. 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. That required us to totally rethink the software and the operations of these aircraft. We’ve built ElevateOS from the ground up to enable high-tempo, on-demand flights that will deliver true time savings and seamless mobility to customers. ElevateOS is the result of many years of iteration and real-life experience and we’re confident it is the most sophisticated, efficient, and flexible suite of air operations tools available today."
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