JOBYManhattan, meet the future
Joby Aviation rolled its all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft into New York City for a live demonstration flight at VertiPorts by Atlantic’s East 34th Street Heliport. That matters because this wasn’t just a flashy PR lap around the block — it was a test of whether an eVTOL can play nicely with existing urban aviation infrastructure.
Why investors should care
Air taxis have lived in the same bucket as flying cars and self-driving promises for years: exciting, headline-friendly, and annoyingly far from reality. A successful demo in Manhattan nudges Joby a little closer to the “okay, maybe this can actually work” column. If regulators, airports, and operators keep warming up to the idea, Joby gets a stronger case that its aircraft can fit into the real world, not just a pitch deck.
The bigger picture
The event also puts a spotlight on the infrastructure side of the business. An aircraft is only half the puzzle; you still need places to land, charge, stage, and move people around without turning the city into a scene from a disaster movie. Partnering with an existing heliport operator gives Joby a cleaner path to showing how electric air mobility might slot into cities that already have aviation traffic.
Big picture: for Joby, every successful demo is another brick in the runway to commercialization — and this one landed right in Manhattan.