Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) announced the signing of an agreement with Archer Aviation under which the parties will collaborate to accelerate the deployment of electric air taxis across the Kingdom. Under this collaboration, GACA and Archer plan to work to establish a regulatory pathway for the introduction and scale-up of eVTOL air taxi operations in the Kingdom. This framework is planned to align with the FAA's certification ruleset, ensuring global interoperability, safety and operational consistency.
GACA is also planning to model its regulatory pathway around the eVTOL Implementation Pilot Program (eIPP) in the U.S. This approach will seek to enable early route testing and service introduction in Riyadh, Jeddah and key gigaprojects such as Red Sea Global. The agreement forms part of GACA's ongoing efforts to accelerate the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) ecosystem in line with the AAM Roadmap and the objectives of the aviation program under the National Transport and Logistics Strategy (NTLS), representing another step in the Kingdom's broader program to develop next-generation air transport solutions. GACA and Archer also plan to undertake a series of proof-of-concept demonstrations and experimental flights to validate regulatory approaches, support infrastructure development, and strengthen public excitement for electric air taxi services.
