India’s travel and hospitality conglomerate InterGlobe Enterprises and Archer Aviation have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch and operate an all-electric air taxi service in India.
Rahul Bhatia, Group Managing Director of InterGlobe, and Nikhil Goel, Chief Commercial Officer of Archer, signed an MoU to form a proposed partnership through which the parties aim to provide a revolutionary transportation solution for the country, improving urban mobility with safe, sustainable, and low-noise electric air taxi service that is cost-competitive with ground transportation.
The parties intend to work with select in-country business partners to operate Archer’s aircraft, finance and build vertiport infrastructure, and train pilots and other personnel needed for these operations. The partnership also plans to finance the purchase of up to 200 of Archer’s Midnight aircraft for the operations in India.
Archer’s Midnight aircraft is a piloted, four-passenger electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft designed to perform rapid back-to-back flights with minimal charge time between flights. The goal is for a passenger on an InterGlobe-Archer flight to be able to fly the 27km Delhi trip from Connaught Place to Gurugram, typically taking 60-90 minutes by car, in approximately 7 minutes.
In addition to urban air taxi services, the parties plan to pursue a variety of other use cases for the electric aircraft in India, including cargo, logistics, medical and emergency services, as well as private company and charter services.
Rahul Bhatia, Group Managing Director of InterGlobe, said; “Over the last two decades, InterGlobe has been involved in providing safe, efficient, and affordable transportation to hundreds of millions of Indians across the country. We are excited at this new opportunity of bringing an effective, futuristic and sustainable transport solution by introducing Archer’s electric aircraft to India.”
“I founded Archer with the vision to help decongest the world’s largest cities. India is one of, if not the largest opportunity for eVTOL aircraft utilization in the world, as it is home to the world’s largest population of over 1.4 billion people and its largest cities face some of the greatest congestion challenges in the world,” commented Archer’s CEO and Founder, Adam Goldstein. “Archer’s all-electric Midnight aircraft is designed to provide a revolutionary transportation solution that can help address these congestion issues.”
Nikhil Goel, Chief Commercial Officer of Archer Aviation, added; “At Archer, our goal is to make cities greener, smarter, more efficient places to live. We couldn’t be more excited to be partnering with Rahul and the InterGlobe team to bring our Midnight aircraft to Indian cities and fundamentally transform mobility across the country, with the goal of starting with Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.”
