A flurry of consolidations and new alliances is giving form to the future eVTOL industry as aviation big guns jump in the mix. On Friday, American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic both announced plans to buy billions of dollars' worth of urban mobility aircraft from U.K.-based Vertical Aerospace. American said it will buy as many as 350 of the company’s VA-X4 five-place tilt-rotor aircraft. American is also throwing in $25 million in research money. Virgin wants to buy at least 150 of the aircraft, which Vertical says has a top speed of 200 MPH and range of 100 miles. Virgin is sweetening the deal by proposing a joint venture with Vertical to establish an eVTOL network in the U.K. Vertical took its company public the next day.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/heavyweights-commit-to-evtol-expansion