Archer's Midnight Electric Air Taxi Completes Three Days of Piloted Flights Across Bay Area
Why It MattersFlying inside the Bay Area's densely used airspace under FAA coordination gives eVTOL developers a working reference for urban operations as Los Angeles and the eIPP programme come next.
Archer Aviation's all-electric Midnight air taxi completed several days of piloted flights in the Bay Area as part of the company's "No Roads" flight tour, the company announced. The multi-city journey began in Salinas and moved to progressively larger cities with more complex airspace, with stops at Hollister, San Martin, San Jose, Mountain View and Hayward before landing in Oakland, where Midnight made multiple piloted flights over the San Francisco Bay, taking off and landing at Oakland International Airport. The flights were intended to show Midnight operating in the complex urban airspace around San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, the Bay Area's three international airports, which form one of the busiest flight corridors in the country.
Midnight flew from Oakland International Airport to San Francisco's Marina District in about 10 minutes, a trip that can routinely take over an hour by car in traffic. Over the three days the aircraft reached top speeds of 131 mph and flew more than 200 miles across the region, visiting seven cities. Archer cited low noise, zero operating emissions and the ability to bypass crowded highways, turning drives of an hour or more into 10–20 minute trips. Founder and CEO Adam Goldstein said Americans lose multiple weeks a year sitting in traffic, and that the flights show communities can be connected with no roads, no traffic and no emissions in minutes instead of hours. He said the company aims to bring the service to the Bay Area, Los Angeles and cities across the country.
The flights were made possible by close coordination with the FAA and state and local partners. Archer plans to fly in Los Angeles next as it prepares to operate under the White House's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP). The Bay Area flights are the latest milestone in the tour: on Sept. 22, Midnight conducted several piloted flights for tens of thousands of attendees at the 2026 California International Airshow, and before that the tour began with city-to-city roundtrips from Salinas to Monterey and Hollister.
