Electric air taxis may be just a few months away from touching down in Dallas-Fort Worth.
California-based Joby Aviation on Thursday said it leased 45,000 square feet at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport (KAFW), part of the 27,000-acre AllianceTexas development owned by real estate developer Hillwood.
The airport is part of the AllianceTexas Mobility Innovation Zone, which per its website gives operators access to complex airspace, an FAA control tower, and rail and roadways, providing a proving ground for uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and other novel technologies.
Joby said the lease marks the “first significant North Texas presence” for a manufacturer of eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft. Another eVTOL developer, Boeing’s Wisk Aero, is partnered with Houston Airports and plans to build a network in south Texas. Wisk last year began developing a vertiport on Signature Aviation’s property at Ellington Airport (KEFD) near Houston.
Per Joby’s news release, the leased site will support “future electric air taxi operations across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.” Greg Bowles, the company’s chief policy officer, said it gives the manufacturer a “base to demonstrate the value of air mobility services across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and the state.”
Joby also has a headquarters, manufacturing plant, and flight test facilities in California, a production hub at Dayton International Airport (KDAY) in Ohio, and several terminals in New York City that it acquired from its 2025 purchase of Blade Air Mobility’s passenger business.
When Are They Coming?
Thursday’s announcement follows Joby’s partnership with Atoms to build a U.S. vertiport network, revealed earlier this week. The partners plan to begin acquiring and developing sites in California as well as in Texas, New York, and Florida—three states where Joby plans to conduct activities under the FAA’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP).
The company framed both announcements as key steps ahead of the eIPP, which will comprise activities with eVTOL air taxis, short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft, flight autonomy systems, and other precertified aviation technologies.
Data from these operations, expected to span three years and 26 states, will be shared with regulators at the FAA. The idea is similar to the agency’s previous BEYOND effort, which was instrumental in drafting regulations for small drones.
Joby founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said on the company’s second-quarter earnings call this week that the company’s first eIPP activities will be in Texas. Per its shareholder letter, the goal is to begin a weeklong campaign of piloted VTOL flights in September.
By the end of the eIPP, some participants hope to fly with passengers and potentially do so for revenue.
“Over time, and with extensive involvement and oversight from the FAA, we expect flights under the eIPP program to progress from those with only a pilot on board to those carrying non-paying passengers and eventually paying passengers,” Bevirt said this week.
The Texas Department of Transportation, the agency lead for Texas eIPP activities, is partnered with Joby, Wisk, and fellow eVTOL manufacturers Archer Aviation and Beta Technologies. Per the U.S. Department of Transportation, they will conduct regional flights connecting Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and eventually Houston.
The eIPP officially got underway in July, when Beta and United Therapeutics used the former’s Alia CX300—which takes off conventionally from the runway—to deliver organs in Maryland and Virginia. Utah is the most recent state to begin operations, launching demonstrations of the EEL, a hybrid-electric aircraft developed by Ampaire, on Thursday.
Joby in advance of the eIPP this year flew its air taxi over San Francisco and New York City, taking off and landing at heliports in downtown Manhattan. The company this week said it has five air taxis flying, including one conforming model for type inspection authorization (TIA), with 12 more aircraft in various stages of production.