{"id":51822,"date":"2025-11-13T21:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T21:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/51822\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T21:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T21:12:08","slug":"l-a-olympics-will-use-air-taxis-to-transport-staff-vips-and-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/51822\/","title":{"rendered":"L.A Olympics Will Use Air Taxis to Transport Staff, VIPs, and Fans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Archer Aviation, partnered with the LA28 and Team USA, will use air taxis to shuttle people between venues across the city. <\/p>\n<p>Traffic is already a headache for many Southern Californians. With the Olympic Games coming to L.A., concerns of traffic issues and gridlock have been growing among residents and locals.<\/p>\n<p>However, <a rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/archer.com\/\">Archer Aviation<\/a> has a plan to reduce traffic congestion in the next Olympic city: bring taxis to the skies. During the 2028 Games, the aviation company will use air taxis to shuttle staff, fans, VIPs, and others across Olympic venues. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou don\u2019t get too many opportunities to really shape what the future of aviation could look like and we\u2019re just getting started,\u201d said Eric Lentell, chief legal and strategy officer at Archer Aviation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The company shared photos of the \u2018Midnight\u2019 aircraft, the model that will be used during the 2028 Olympics, via Instagram last week. Archer plans to begin demonstration flights in L.A in early 2026.<\/p>\n<p>The company also celebrated its Quarter 3 2025 results, highlighting the company\u2019s recent acquisition of an L.A. airport for $126 million. The airport will serve as Archer\u2019s new \u201coperational hub\u201d for its growing air taxi network.<\/p>\n<p>Archer announced the acquisition of Hawthorne Airport on November 6th. The company said it is \u201cstrategically located less than three miles from LAX\u201d and \u201cis the closest airport to some of the city\u2019s biggest attractions \u2014 SoFi Stadium, The Forum, Intuit Dome, and Downtown L.A.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>SoFi Stadium and Kia Forum are among the venues hosting Olympic events, making Hawthorne Airport a prime location for the new aircraft hub. In an Instagram post, Archer Aviation celebrated the acquisition of historic Hawthorne and discussed its future as a \u201ctest bed\u201d for AI aviation technology.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center is-style-altfont has-secondary-color has-text-color has-link-color has-xs-font-size wp-elements-a392843e06eac12cec56e735f4f8219f has-lg-margin-top\" style=\"letter-spacing:1px;text-transform:uppercase\">Scroll to continue reading<\/p>\n<p>Archer Aviation will use its electric, four-passenger \u2018Midnight\u2019 eVTOL to conduct transport during the Games. The acronym stands for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. <\/p>\n<p>With the goal of creating a more sustainable future for the Games, air taxis will provide efficient, 10-20 minute flights in between key locations and venues during the Olympics. The Midnight aircraft can reach speeds of up to 150 MPH, turning hour-long ground commutes into quick flights. <\/p>\n<p>The service aims to avoid gridlock, reduce ground traffic during the event, and minimize travel time between venues. <\/p>\n<p>To ensure safety in L.A.\u2019s airspace, Archer is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to develop rules and design extra safeguards for integrating air taxis into traffic with traditional planes and helicopters.<\/p>\n<p>The FAA is calling them \u2018<a rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.faa.gov\/air-taxis\">Advanced Air Mobility<\/a>\u2018 aircraft, or AAM. This is an umbrella term referring to air taxis and other aircraft or eVTOLs like Midnight. Both the FAA and Archer are focused on creating safe, sustainable, and innovative travel.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis isn\u2019t about going from zero to 100,000 aircraft within a month,\u201d Lentell said. \u201cThis is about ramping safely into that, building community trust.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Archer Aviation, partnered with the LA28 and Team USA, will use air taxis to shuttle people between venues&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[33015,2046,16309,24384,48,52,51,27729,47,50,49,10012,5712],"class_list":["post-51822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-archer-aviation","tag-faa","tag-intuit-dome","tag-kia-forum","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-la28","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-olympics","tag-sofi-stadium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}