Third-quarter 2026 earnings call, November 9, 2026: first Los Angeles operations expected within weeks, passenger flights targeted for 2027
Market survey certificate is the real news, but it covers only the conventional-takeoff aircraft
Archer announced ahead of its third-quarter call that the FAA has granted Midnight a Market Survey Special Airworthiness Certificate. The certificate lets the company begin flying in Los Angeles and progress toward carrying passengers before type certification. CEO Adam Goldstein called it "undoubtedly our most important commercialization milestone to date." The aircraft is already at Hawthorne Airport, and Archer expects the next leg of its No Roads tour to start in the coming weeks.
The certificate has a significant limitation. In response to an analyst question, Chief Technology Officer Benjamin Lyon confirmed that the approval applies to Midnight in its conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) configuration, not to vertical flight. Archer does not intend to sell the aircraft in that form: "It's not something we intend to sell as a CTOL-only aircraft," Lyon said, describing the certificate as "a step along the way." The company plans to repeat the process on the VTOL configuration, which requires completing the piloted transition campaign, logging 50 hours of stable-configuration testing, sharing the data with the FAA and then seeking a second market survey approval. Management said it expects this "very much in the near future," but gave no date.
Lyon said the approval rested on substantiating aircraft performance across the full flight envelope, 50 hours of testing in a stable configuration, and FAA review of energy management and range predictions. He described the third quarter as a record, with more than 118 test flights and as many as 16 in a week. The No Roads tour in Northern California logged 28 flights in 13 days across 8 airports in the Silicon Valley, Oakland and San Francisco areas, including operations in airspace shared with three international airports. Lyon said this showed that Archer's design for "high-tempo urban operation" works.
Passenger flights are a 2027 event, and the sequencing remains loose
Goldstein said Archer expects to progress in Los Angeles from piloted CTOL flights to VTOL operations and then to piloted flights with passengers, in coordination with the FAA and in parallel with type certification. Asked whether passengers could fly during the CTOL phase, he said the company can do both and plans passenger flights in 2027, adding that he intends to be the first passenger. He did not commit to whether those flights would use the CTOL or VTOL configuration. The sequencing therefore depends on how quickly additional aircraft clear the transition campaign and a VTOL survey approval.
The key near-term gating item remains piloted transition, which management still expects to complete by year-end. Lyon said Archer has flown more than 260 piloted test flights, over 100 of them within the transition campaign. He acknowledged that the safety and software verification bar is higher for piloted flights than for the earlier autonomous transition. He said the software verification process is complete and that there have been "no surprises so far." Archer is building 9 Midnight aircraft for flight test, the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program and Los Angeles, along with multiple Halo aircraft. Lyon confirmed that these piloted aircraft can serve both market survey and certification purposes. Goldstein said three more aircraft are in final assembly. Type certification remains in the final implementation phase, and management offered no completion date.
When asked about competitors' comments that FAA pilots sometimes skip planned flights during the type certification flight test phase, Goldstein declined to speculate. He said Archer has "a very rigorous flight test plan" and is confident in its approach. That suggests the company is not counting on any shortcut.
Boeing transaction: one approval left, with Insitu as the revenue anchor
Archer said it has worked through nearly 20 governmental and third-party approvals for its pending purchase of Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu from Boeing. The HSR waiting period has expired and one condition remains. The company had guided to a close by year-end and now says closing should come "soon." Boeing is receiving all stock, with warrants struck at multiples of the current share price, and will become Archer's largest shareholder at closing.
Insitu is the financially important piece. Management described it as a profitable intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drone business with more than $200 million in annual revenue, operations in more than 35 countries, over 4,000 Group 2 and Group 3 systems fielded and nearly 2 million flight hours. CFO Priya Gupta said the U.S. business would anchor Archer in "a programmatic revenue base in the hundreds of millions per year." She reiterated the goal of keeping net cash burn roughly flat versus current levels after closing, and said integration planning has produced "a clear execution path" to the expected synergies. Archer declined to give 2027 revenue targets for Insitu, saying it will provide more after closing. The $200 million figure is historical, not a forecast, and investors should treat the company's growth ambitions for the unit as unquantified.
Goldstein framed the combined company as "a diversified next-gen A&D company" spanning civil and defense, manned and autonomous aircraft. The plan for Wisk's autonomy technology is unchanged: harden it on the Halo platform first and bring it to air taxis only when the FAA is ready to certify it. On SkyGrid and Archer's AI foundation model, management said it is in discussions on pilot programs with governments and airlines. It cited demand for SkyGrid's air traffic management platform from governments, air navigation service providers, airports and airlines, but did not name customers or give revenue figures.
Defense and the monetization model: sell aircraft first, operate later
On the business model, Goldstein said post-certification Archer will focus on selling aircraft and will have to "earn our way into the operating side." The company will keep some fleet to operate itself, but he suggested early revenue will come from aircraft sales and defense. He also expects aftermarket revenue from battery packs, which will be replaced regularly, and from engines on a longer cycle. That is a more conservative position than a vertically integrated air taxi operator model.
The Anduril partnership progressed. Archer began testing the turboshaft engine for the Group 5 hybrid-electric autonomous aircraft, the core new technology in the platform. Chief Operating Officer Thomas Muniz said the first electric motors are also spinning, and that the motors are built on Midnight technology, which is how development is moving quickly. Full-scale flight testing is still planned for next year. Archer also delivered initial engines and batteries for Anduril's Omen, which generated its first powertrain revenue. Management would not disclose unit volumes or pricing.
Financials: modest revenue, widening loss guidance
Third-quarter revenue was $5.1 million, ahead of consensus on the Omen deliveries. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $178.5 million, at the favorable end of the $170 million to $200 million guidance range and better than consensus. Liquidity was $1.4 billion. For the fourth quarter, Archer guided on a stand-alone basis, excluding the Boeing assets, to revenue of $5 million to $6 million and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $185 million to $205 million. At the midpoint, the loss is about $16.5 million wider than in the third quarter, reflecting Midnight certification and flight testing, Los Angeles operations, Halo development and AI product launches. With a run rate near $180 million to $200 million per quarter, the $1.4 billion balance gives a limited runway before Insitu's cash flows come in. An unused $55 million forward equity purchase agreement with Boeing gives Archer the option, not the obligation, to sell more stock.
On infrastructure, Goldstein said Archer is working across five U.S. networks: Los Angeles, New York, the Bay Area, Miami and Texas. It plans 11 vertiports in Texas. He said the ACES charging consortium with BETA and Macquarie, along with landlord and airport partners, means the networks should not be "a significant use of our capital."
New partnerships: Formula 1 and ITA Airways add reach but not revenue visibility
Archer will jointly announce a multiyear Formula 1 partnership on November 10 to provide air taxi service at Grand Prix weekends, with dedicated locations at circuits and integration into hospitality and ticketing. ITA Airways, Italy's flag carrier and part of the Lufthansa Group, became the first European airline to join Archer's network in October. Goldstein said European activity will be coordinated with EASA and that the FAA and EASA have been working to align certification frameworks. Neither announcement came with financial terms or commitments, so both are better read as marketing and market-access steps than as contracted revenue.