Futuristic air-taxi firm Joby expands NYC, global footprint with $125M deal as it nears fed certification for passengers

WASHINGTON — The futuristic air-taxi firm Joby Aviation is expanding its footprint in New York City and other major urban centers globally with the $125 million acquisition of one of its competitors’ subsidiaries, as it nears final certifications from the feds to begin flying passengers next year.

The Santa Cruz, California-based firm agreed Monday to buy Blade Air Mobility’s passenger business after successfully carrying up to 50,000 people on helicopter and plane demonstration flights from a dozen terminals globally — with infrastructure already in place in the Big Apple, Europe and Dubai.

“With access to the infrastructure they have secured and the loyal customer base they have developed, we will be in the best possible position to launch our quiet, electric aircraft as soon as certification is secured,” Joby Aviation CEO and founder JoeBen Bevirt said in a statement. 

The aerospace company rolled out a prototype to display in Grand Central Station, giving a glimpse of the craft that could soar New Yorkers above clogged roads and crowded subways from lower Manhattan to catch a departing flight at JFK Airport in under seven minutes.

Blade will add terminal spaces at JFK and Newark Liberty Airport to Joby’s infrastructure, in addition to other bases for takeoff and landing on the East Side and West Side of Manhattan as well as Wall Street.

President Trump had signed an executive order in June launching a pilot program for air taxis, also known as eVTOLs, that spurred Joby and other firms to seek federal certifications for flying passengers commercially.

With the new acquisition, Joby is in a better position to begin rolling out its own commercial flights next year and eventually make commuting like “The Jetsons” in the vertical-takeoff aircraft a feature of everyday life.

As of June, the electric air taxi firm reached 80% compliance in the final stage of its certification process with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after having secured hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in recent years from companies including Uber, Toyota and Delta.

That included an exclusive partnership that will let passengers book flights around town from the ride-sharing platform’s app — now with the addition of the Blade app following Monday’s agreement.

Other leading eVTOL makers include Beta Technologies and Archer Aviation.

“It’s crystal clear from their progress on certification to the successful demonstration flights in New York and Dubai that this is the best possible home for our fliers, our team and our partner,” said Rob Wiesenthal, Blade’s CEO, who will remain in charge of the passenger business at Joby.

As part of the agreement, which will be finalized in the coming weeks, the New York-based company will restructure its medical transport division — one of the largest transporters of human organs for procedures — as Strata Critical Medical, a separate, publicly traded company chaired by Wiesenthal.

“Blade’s mission since inception has been to accelerate the transition from traditional rotorcraft to electric aircraft,” he said. “There is no stronger company than Joby to help make this mission a reality, for the benefit of all our stakeholders, including our fliers, employees, partners, and the cities we serve.”

The deal will allow Joby aircraft to be the preferred partner for its medical missions, which accounted for the majority of Blade’s revenue.

Some Republicans and sources close to the White House had indicated Joby’s financial ties to billionaire Reid Hoffman — a known anti-Trump, Silicon Valley donor who backed Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 — could have been a stumbling block in the certification process.

A Joby spokesperson previously told The Post that the company, founded in 2009, had “been actively engaged with the Administration, including the White House, DOT and legislators on certification” and “received strong, bipartisan support across the board.

But Hoffman, who provided some initial seed funding nearly four years ago as part of a SPAC deal, was replaced on Joby’s board last year by investor Michael Thompson, who donated $200,000 to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s America PAC to help re-elect Trump in June 2024, Federal Election Commission filings show.

Thompson has spurred the imaginations of innovators by suggesting that, along with the first passenger flights on its aircraft, Joby could replicate the Wright Brothers take off from the White House in 1911 — and land one of the firm’s air taxis on the South Lawn before Trump leaves office.