FAA/DOT eIPP: Eight eVTOL Pilot Projects Across 26 States Set for Summer 2026 Flights

Headline Finding

On March 9, 2026, the US Department of Transportation and FAA announced the selection of eight eVTOL pilot projects spanning 26 states under the Advanced Air Mobility and eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), with public flights expected by summer 2026. The program — chosen from more than 30 proposals — covers urban air taxi, regional passenger transport, cargo and logistics, emergency medical response, autonomous flight, and offshore energy support. This is a material acceleration of the federal deployment clock: a structured, multi-state regulatory sandbox is now live, generating the operational data the FAA says it needs to write future AAM rules. The governance clock — permanent certification standards, airspace integration rules, urban vertiport siting frameworks — has not yet caught up.

Detail

The DOT announced the eight selections on March 9, 2026, as part of the eIPP. The agency stated the program will generate operational data that the FAA can use to develop future regulations for advanced air mobility aircraft, and that the public could begin seeing flights under the program by summer 2026. The program received more than 30 proposals from eVTOL makers, localities, and states; a DOT/FAA technical review team evaluated submissions on their ability to accelerate AAM integration, breadth of proposed operations, potential regulatory value, experience in aircraft development or manufacturing, and the strength of industry, academic, and government partnerships.

The eight selected projects and their geographic and operational scope are as follows. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will bring together Archer, Beta, Electra, and Joby on 12 operational concepts across New England, including eVTOL passenger operations at the Manhattan Heliport. Texas’s state transportation department will work with Archer, Beta, Joby, and Wisk on regional flights connecting Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and eventually Houston. Utah’s project spans four states across the Pacific Northwest, Rocky Mountains, and Oklahoma, testing multiple aircraft types with Ampaire, Beta, Joby, and other partners. Pennsylvania’s project, led through the NASAO AAM Multistate Collaborative, involves 13 states and focuses on revitalizing regional flights including service concepts similar to Essential Air Service routes, with Beta and Electra among the partners. Louisiana’s project will test cargo and personnel transportation over the Gulf of America and to energy industry locations in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, with Beta and Elroy Air as partners. Florida will run a statewide three-phase program covering cargo delivery, passenger transportation, automation, and medical response, with Archer, Beta, Electra, and Joby participating. North Carolina’s project focuses on piloted medical and regional operations within the state and an autonomous flight operation extending into Virginia, with Beta and Joby among the partners. The City of Albuquerque, New Mexico, will focus on autonomous operations through an existing partnership with Reliable Robotics.

Governance Implication

1. The deployment clock has moved decisively: a federally structured, 26-state sandbox with flights expected by summer 2026 means eVTOL operations will be generating real-world data before permanent airspace integration rules, vertiport siting standards, or urban noise and safety frameworks exist — the canonical pacing problem (chapter 1).
2. The legitimacy lever is being moved at the federal level through structured pilot selection, but the governance gap is that cities and states hosting operations (New York, Texas, Florida, etc.) have no standardised instrument — no vertiport zoning code, no curb-management protocol for landing pads, no per-trip fee structure — to capture public value or manage externalities from these flights.
3. The spatial-allocation lever is implicated directly: operations at the Manhattan Heliport and over urban corridors in Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio will compete for low-altitude airspace and ground-level infrastructure with existing uses; no urban spatial-allocation framework for AAM corridors is cited as being in place.
4. The eIPP’s explicit purpose — generating operational data to write future regulations — confirms the FAA is using deployment to inform rulemaking rather than the reverse; this is a deliberate sequencing choice that cities and investors should read as a signal that permanent rules remain years away, increasing fiscal and regulatory uncertainty for vertiport developers and fleet operators.
5. The inclusion of autonomous flight operations (Albuquerque/Reliable Robotics; North Carolina into Virginia) alongside piloted eVTOL means the governance clock must simultaneously catch up to two distinct capability tracks — piloted AAM and fully autonomous AAM — each with different accountability-architecture requirements.

Sources

https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/faa-selects-eight-evtol-pilot-projects https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot-faa-select-eight-pilot-projects-advance-evtol-and-advanced-air-mobility-integration https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-dot-select-eight-pilot-projects-advance-evtol-advanced-air-mobility-integration