Archer Aviation said on 9 November 2026 that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued a Market Survey Special Airworthiness Certificate for its Midnight electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. In its third-quarter results release, the company said the certificate “unlocks piloted operations in Los Angeles in preparation for carrying passengers”. The release says operations are expected to open “in coming weeks” and ties the certificate to the Department of Transportation’s eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP) and the LA28 Olympic Games. It does not state the date on which the FAA issued the certificate.

What the certificate covers

The release presents passenger flights as a later step. It says the certificate follows the October completion of the Northern California portion of Archer’s “No Roads” tour, which included more than 300 miles of piloted flights. The release does not state a type-certification status for Midnight. Motley Fool, reporting on 10 November, said the company is still in Phase 4 of FAA certification and needs final certification, which it described as ongoing. Archer’s forward-looking statements say the timing, phasing, geographic scope and planned eIPP and LA28 operations, including initial piloted operations in Los Angeles, are uncertain. CEO Adam Goldstein said: “I started Archer to unlock the skies, and we are now doing that across both commercial and defense.”

Third-quarter results

Archer reported revenue of $5.1 million for the quarter ended 30 September 2026, compared with $5.0 million in the second quarter and none reported a year earlier. Net loss was $274.6 million, against $263.2 million in the second quarter and $129.9 million in the third quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $178.5 million ($177.1 million in the second quarter; $116.1 million a year earlier), toward the better end of the company’s $170 million to $200 million guidance range. Cash, equivalents and short-term investments were $1,353.6 million, compared with $1,560.6 million at the end of the second quarter and $1,641.3 million a year earlier; the company also reports $18.4 million in restricted cash and describes total liquidity as about $1.4 billion. For the fourth quarter it guided to revenue of $5 million to $6 million and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $185 million to $205 million.

Motley Fool reported additional figures: revenue above the analyst consensus of $3.57 million, a loss of $0.35 per share against a consensus of $0.34, operating expenses of $294.3 million (up 68% from a year earlier) and operating cash flow of negative $470.1 million, without stating the period for the cash-flow figure. It said Archer shares fell as much as 9.8% early on 10 November and were down 5.1% at 11:45 a.m. Eastern, and that the stock has lost 44% of its value over the past year.

Boeing transaction

The release describes Archer’s acquisition of Boeing’s Wisk, Insitu and SkyGrid businesses as nearing close but not closed, subject to regulatory approvals and other closing conditions. It says Boeing would become a strategic partner and Archer’s largest shareholder on closing, and that Insitu adds more than $200 million in annual revenue across 35 countries, based on Insitu’s current financial statements and estimates. The release also says Archer has begun turboshaft engine testing for its Halo and Thunder hybrid programs and that the program, which involves Anduril, “remains on track to begin full-scale flight testing next year”.

Sources and notes

Sources: Archer’s third-quarter 2026 results release on its investor site, dated 9 November 2026, and Motley Fool (Danny Vena, 10 November 2026). All financial and operational figures other than Motley Fool’s are company-reported. Lens did not read the earnings-call transcript, did not see the certificate itself, and could not open the FAA’s newsroom item on market-survey certificates, so it makes no statement about how the certificate compares with others issued by the FAA. The Insitu revenue figure is Archer’s estimate.

Image: Downtown Los Angeles skyline at dusk seen from near Echo Park Lake. Photo: Adoramassey, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (file record dated 2016). Stand-in image; Archer’s Midnight aircraft does not appear.