BLADE Urban Air Mobility and Ross Aviation entered into a strategic alliance to expedite the roll-out of urban air mobility services in the regions where Ross Aviation and Blade operations overlap. In December of 2020, Experience Investment Corp. (NASDAQ: EXPC) agreed to merge with Blade, which will create, following the closing of the merger, the only publicly traded urban air mobility platform in the United States. Under the strategic alliance, Blade plans to launch a pilot program offering daily helicopter flights between Ross Aviation’s West Terminal at the Westchester County Airport (the “Airport”) and Blade heliport terminals in Manhattan to serve commuters from the Westchester/Connecticut area. In 2019 alone, these commuters took more than 40 million trips commuting to and from New York City, the majority driving alone in a car for 1-2 hours in each direction. Blade expects the five-day-per-week service to begin as early as March 2021, transforming that 1-2 hour drive into a 10-15 minute flight. The price per flight per person is expected to be approximately $175. Blade expects to offer commuter passes sometime after launch that will reduce the per seat cost to $95. Additionally, Blade and Ross Aviation intend to work together to develop a plan to build a vertiport, located at the Airport, which will include the infrastructure required to hangar, charge, stage and deploy Electric Vertical Aircraft ("EVA" or Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing aircraft ("eVTOL") in aerospace parlance) as they become commercially available. Some of the conditions to the development of any such vertiport will include local and federal approvals including by the Airport, Westchester County, and the Federal Aviation Administration. While many in the industry expect EVA to be ready for flights as early as 2022 or 2023, Blade projects a more conservative timetable of 2025.