200 of Embraer's Eve eVTOLs soon to buzz NY & London

Embraer’s Eve eVTOL arm (whose spin-off we covered back in the day) is off to a dazzling commercial start with an order for 200 of its urban air mobility vehicles from Halo, the eVTOL subsidiary of the OneSky Flight group (an aviation conglomerate that has also fractional jet operator Flexjet and executive jet broker PrivateFly in its portfolio of brands).

If all goes according to plan, the Eve eVTOLs should be buzzing the skies of New York in London, 100 apiece for each city, by 2026.

A couple of important considerations after this announcement:

First the grand entry of Embraer into the competitive eVTOL race, that has seen a number of headline-making announcements in the last couple of months. With his quantitatively significant order, it kind of leapfrogs other manufacturers in this emerging segment of the aviation industry.

And also remarkable is the fact that we are seeing an increasing number of operators taking positions in what was, until very recently, a mostly manufacturer-driven industry.

This deal between Halo and Eve, together with that of Lilium and Luxaviation and before that, the involvement of United Airlines with Archer, brings an interesting dimension to the urban (and in some cases even inter-urban) air mobility business, that of real use cases taking shape under the aegis of market players that are experienced in the operational and customer-facing side of the business, companies that know how to move people around.

Exciting times!