ACHR Archer Aviation Inc
$4.81
Archer Aviation Inc Q3 F2026 Earnings Call Transcript
AI Conference Call Analysis
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Operator
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Archer Aviation Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Kate Kiewel, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Kate Kiewel
Head of Investor Relations
Welcome to Archer's Earnings Call. This is Kate Kiewel, Archer's Head of IR. Today we will be making forward-looking statements that are based on current assumptions. We don't undertake any obligation to update those assumptions for new information or future events. Risks and uncertainties may cause our actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. For more information about potential risks and uncertainties, review the risk factors in our SEC filings. Today, we will also be discussing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of those measures is included in today's earnings release. Now, I'll turn it over to Adam. Adam?
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Kate. Last quarter, I told you that we would begin flying midnight in American cities this year. In September, we launched Midnight's No Roads Flight Tour in Northern California in close coordination with the FAA. Over several weeks, Midnight gave the region the longest look yet at what electric aviation will mean for life in our cities. The tour opened with a round trip between Salinas and Hollister, a trip that takes 40 minutes or more in traffic and that Midnight made in about 12 minutes each way. From there, midnight worked its way north through seven Northern California cities, flying hundreds of miles across dozens of piloted city-to-city flying at speeds of over 130 miles per hour. The highlight was the bay itself. Multiple flights around San Francisco Bay out of Oakland International Airport through airspace shared with three international airports with the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges as the backdrop. One of my favorite shots from the tour is midnight passing over Apple HQ in Cupertino, home to so much of the technology that changed daily life. For a few weeks this fall, the people who built that technology could look up and watch the next one, an electric aircraft that will change how they move around their cities, fly over their heads. And today, our midnight aircraft is now in Los Angeles at Hawthorne Airport. and this morning we announced that Midnight has received its Market Survey Special Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA, which unlocks our ability to begin flying midnight in L.A. and progressing to passenger carrying operations in L.A. and other major U.S. cities ahead of type certification. This is undoubtedly our most important commercialization milestone to date. In 2026, you've seen Midnight progress from piloted test flights over open country to piloted flights over densely populated cities in some of the busiest airspace in America. This is how trust with the FAA is built, and it is what resulted in Midnight receiving its market survey certificate. This now allows us to begin midnight's operations in Los Angeles and mature into carrying passengers as part of the DOT's eBTOL integration pilot program and the LA-28 games, each a building block towards type certification in routine urban air mobility operations at scale. None of this happened by accident. We have been preparing LA for more than two years since we announced our planned LA route network in August 2024. In May of last year, LA-28 selected Archer as the official air taxi provider of the 2028 Olympic Games. And three weeks later, after working closely with industry leaders on its design, the White House established the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program and a pathway for accelerated launch in American cities. Together, they set the strategy for bringing midnight into service. Fly in American cities through 2027 and showcase air taxi operations at the Games in 2028. That is why we chose L.A. as our launch city. At this time last year, we acquired the master lease and control of Hawthorne Airport, minutes from LAX and the major L.A. sports and entertainment venues. We have now operated the airport and its fixed-based operator for almost a year, which has given us real-world operational experience that no one else in our industry has, and a platform for working through air taxi airspace compatibility with the FAA. and under a year, we have upgraded the terminal building, brought electric aircraft charging to the airport and begun construction on 11 new hangars. This morning, we announced that we have delivered the first midnight to LA for the next part of the No Roads Tour, which we expect to begin in the coming weeks. It is based out of a hangar at Hawthorne that was once the world headquarters of Jack Northrup's Northrup Corporation, a company that helped write the last century of American aviation, and I can think of no better place from which to launch the next one. The timing works out in our favor as well, with LA hosting the Super Bowl in February and the LA 28 games opening in a little over 600 days. Our commercial and infrastructure teams are assembling the Los Angeles network piece by piece with planned vertiports connecting SoFi Stadium, USC, and FBOs across the region. And as we announced in August, a downtown vertiport at LA Live with AEG. Over the coming quarters in LA, you can expect us to progress from piloted CTOL into VTOL operations and then onto pilot plus passenger operations in coordination with the FAA and in parallel with type certification. Los Angeles is where we are writing the blueprint for every city that follows. On certification, as we've talked about before, midnight is in the fourth and final phase of the FAA's type certification process, the implementation phase where every compliance finding is made against the means of compliance and test plans we agreed with the agency. Thank you for joining us. That progress, together with the success of the No Roads Tour, gives us the confidence to keep ramping manufacturing output, and today we showed three additional midnight aircraft in final assembly getting ready to move into flight testing. Air taxis are here, and as they scale, they will change how we move around our cities. We continue to plan with the FAA to bring the No Roads Tour to Texas, Florida, and New York. Across these regions, we've announced route networks well ahead of our operations, so regulatory and infrastructure partners have time to get ready alongside us. Last month, we announced planned Texas networks across Dallas, Houston, and Austin, 11 vertiports connecting destinations from Frisco Station to Galveston to the Circuit of the Americas, and ACES, our charging consortium with Beta in Macquarie Capital, is already working on charging at those sites. Now let me turn to our pending acquisition of WISC, SkyGrid, and InSitu from Boeing. When we announced the transaction in August, we said we expected to close by the end of the year. Since then, the team has worked through nearly 20 governmental and third-party approvals, and one remains, and we believe closing will be soon. As I discussed in detail last quarter, WISC and SkyGrid are about accelerating the development, commercialization, and scaling of our air taxi business, and our plan for WISC's autonomy technology has not changed. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Our goal going into 2027 is to rapidly grow that revenue base, which can then meaningfully offset our continued spend to bring midnight to market. Expect to hear a lot more from us on that strategy once we're on the other side of closing. As a reminder on structure, Boeing is taking all stock with warrants struck at multiples of where we trade today and will become our largest shareholder at closing. In parallel, we continue to deepen our strategic relationship with Andrewal. In July at Farnborough, we unveiled the aircraft we are building together, a Group 5 hybrid electric autonomous aircraft. This quarter, we began testing the turboshaft engine for that platform. The turbo generator is one of the central new technologies in the aircraft, extending the electric powertrain we have proven on midnight into a new class of range, speed, and payload, and with multiple full-scale surrogate test flights behind us, the program remains on track to begin full-scale flight testing next year. We have also delivered the initial battery packs and electric engines to Andrel for Omen, the autonomous air vehicle they are building with Edge Group in the UAE. As I said last quarter, I continue to believe deploying our technology early in defense will deliver value across the whole business. Our progress and the world's excitement for our products continue to attract new partners around the world. Ita Airways, Italy's flag carrier and a member of the Lufthansa Group, became the first European airline to join our network in October with plans to bring midnight to Italy's major cities. But the biggest new partner announcement is one we are jointly announcing tomorrow, a multi-year partnership with Formula One to bring air taxi service to Grand Prix weekends. We envision dedicated air taxi locations at the circuits, integration into F1's hospitality and ticketing, and VIPs and fans flying to and from the track in 10 to 20 minutes aboard midnight. Many of F1's key markets around the world align with our priority commercial markets across the US, Middle East, Asia, and Europe. Midnight was on display in the Fan Zone and the F1 Paddock in Austin last month and will be at the Las Vegas Grand Prix later this year. We are executing all this from a position of financial strength, with $1.4 billion in liquidity at the end of the quarter, adjusted EBITDA within our guidance, and our first revenue from powertrain deliveries. I started Archer to unlock the skies, and we are now doing that across both commercial and defense. Eight years ago, Archer was a concept. Today, it is an aircraft in Los Angeles with FAA authorization to begin operations there, a defense program with Andrewl, and a transaction that will make Boeing our largest shareholder. I've never been more confident in the work we are doing at Archer. With that, I'll turn it over to Priya.
Priya Gupta
Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Adam, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'll cover three things in the call with you. Our third quarter financial results, an update on our planned acquisition of Wisk, SkyGrid, and In-situ, and lastly, our outlook for the fourth quarter. Starting with the results, we delivered a strong third quarter. Revenue was 5.1 million, beating consensus. That beat was driven by the first engine deliveries to Andrew for Omen. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $178.5 million, which is at the lower end of our guided range of $170 to $200 million, and better than consensus. We told you we would stay disciplined while investing across our air taxi, UAVs, and software platforms, and we continue to do exactly that. We ended the quarter with $1.4 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments. So as we look towards our operations post-closing of our pending acquisitions from Boeing, we entered this next chapter for the company with a strong liquidity position. Now let's turn to those acquisitions. As Adam mentioned, we anticipate the close timing of the acquisition of Visk, SkyGrid, and In-Situ from Boeing to be very close. The HSR waiting period expired and all but one of the remaining regulatory closing conditions have been satisfied When we announced this deal, we told you we believed it would change the profile of Archer After months of detailed integration planning work with the leadership teams at these companies, I can tell you that our conviction has only grown Insitu will immediately change that with its established ISR drone business historically achieving more than 200 million of annual revenue and positive operating cash flows. Combined with our airport operations, early commercial activity, and the platforms we're building, that will bring a step change. Going forward, the U.S. side of the business will anchor Archer in a programmatic revenue base in the hundreds of millions per year. And revenue is only one part of the value Institute brings to us. With operations in more than 35 countries and over three decades of field experience, Insitu gives Archer an established global footprint with deep operational expertise. When we announced the transaction, we set a goal of keeping net cash burn post-close relatively flat from where it is today. The integration planning work of the last few months has given us a clear execution path to realizing our expected synergies from the deal. For the fourth quarter, we will continue to provide guidance on a standalone basis, that is excluding the impact of the planned acquisitions. We anticipate revenue to grow in Q4 from Q3 and to be in the range of $5-6 million as we pick up our pace of operations at Hawthorne and continue to deliver additional engines and batteries for Oman. We expect an adjusted EBITDA loss in the range of $185 million to $205 million as we continue to mature our midnight certification and flight test program, begin midnight operations in LA, advance our Halo development program, and develop and launch our AI products. To bring it together, our third quarter results meet consensus on both revenue and adjusted EBITDA, and we're ending the quarter with $1.4 billion in liquidity. We are tracking well to close the acquisitions and we're confident they will transform Archer into a more mature operating business. Thank you for joining us today and we look forward to taking your questions. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator.
Conference Operator
Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up and rejoin the queue if you would like to ask an additional question. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Anthony Valentini with Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Anthony Valentini
Analyst, Barclays
Hey Adam, thanks for the question. I wanted to ask you, I think that it's kind of evolved over time a little bit in the industry of how the different companies are looking to monetize their aircraft. So I'm curious how you guys are currently thinking about the split of OEM sales versus operating the aircraft yourself, and what opportunities there are for aftermarket sales once the fleet grows, giving you guys kind of the route of outsourcing most of the parts to speed up the certification timeline.
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Anthony. We still look at this as an interesting application to sell aircraft, and I think we have to earn our way into the operating side. And so the early years of, you know, post certification, I think we'll be very focused on selling aircraft. We still will certainly have some fleet that we want to operate ourselves to learn and ultimately to grow. But I think we have to earn our way into the air taxi side. I also think the aftermarket will be attractive with things like battery packs that will ultimately be replaced. on a regular cadence and things like engines, but we'll be on a longer timescale. I think there's more to dig into over time, but ultimately sales will be a big driver of that. I also think that on the defense side, that's going to drive a lot of the early revenues as well. And so there'll be similar types of dynamics there too.
Anthony Valentini
Analyst, Barclays
Adam, on that, are you saying that you think that there's going to be aftermarket opportunity on the defense side? Or are you just saying maybe if you can just help me understand what you mean by that, that'd be great. And is there a way for us to think about in the quarter how many engines you guys delivered on Omen and maybe like what the ASP is of that going forward?
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think I was referring to partnerships like we have with Anduril on Omen. That's a great example of selling parts. But I'll let Tom give a little bit more color on Omen.
Tom Muniz
Chief Operating Officer
Yeah, not too much more to add. Obviously, we've mentioned we started to deliver against our engine and battery supply contract with Anduril. Can't get into too much color there, just given the nature of the agreement. But I think the exciting thing is it's a great proof point for the core tech that we've developed over the last several years here that we have been applying and certifying on midnight, but obviously it's applicable much more broadly if you think about the Halo platform, the Andro platform, and as well as in situ platforms coming up post-transaction close.
Conference Operator
Operator
Great. Thanks, guys. Your next question comes from the line of Andres Shepard with Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Peter
Analyst, speaking on behalf of Andres Sheppard at Cantor Fitzgerald
Hi, everyone. This is Peter on for Andres. Congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking our questions. First, Adam, I'm hoping to touch on big picture. It's clear that Archer is now much more than an EV tool company. So I guess the question here is, how should we think about the company big picture and the near term priorities with In-Situ, Midnight, EIPP, and then Thunder and Halo?
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Well, if you look at the core capabilities of what we've built, we have incredible design expertise, an in-house powertrain capability, a full-stack software team, and this really enables us to build large and small aircraft, both manned and unmanned. And the Midnight platform is allowing us to go after the large trillion-dollar air taxi TAM that we set the company up to go after and chase. The Halo platform really reuses that same powertrain and the flight control software stack to go after the multi-deca-billion-dollar Defense Group 5 vertical lift products. And the in-situ platform with customers in 35 countries is already generating revenue and right for new products that can allow the company to dramatically scale revenue in the near term. So post-closing of the transaction, Archer will have a diversified revenue stream coming from both civil and defense applications across manned and autonomous platforms. and I think that really uniquely positions us as a diversified next-gen A&D company.
Peter
Analyst, speaking on behalf of Andres Sheppard at Cantor Fitzgerald
Got it. Very helpful. And maybe as a follow-up, can you expand on the flight test campaign opportunities in LA and latest on production plans and timeline for Midnight and Thunder?
Benjamin
Flight Test Executive
Sure, Peter. This is Benjamin. Just a quick update on flight tests. You know, this quarter has been a record quarter for us. We're talking over 118 test flights. up to 16 flights a week. And really all of that culminated in our FAA approval to operate midnight under that market survey special airworthiness certificate. And we had to do a lot for that. Like we had to demonstrate that the aircraft performance was kind of substantiated through its entire flight envelope. We could build 50 hours of testing in that stable configuration. And then after that, the FAA reviewed all of our data and energy management and range predictions to make sure that the aircraft did what we said it was going to do. And all of that led to them authorizing us to do flight not only over densely populated areas, but in a really busy airspace. and so with our no roads tour that kind of kicked off this big test of our operational capability. So think 28 flights in just 13 days across eight airports in Silicon Valley, Oakland and San Francisco metropolitan areas. And what that kind of took us to really get to is that our investment in developing Midnight for this really high tempo urban operation worked out. It's really, really smooth. So we're gonna take that forward in the further flight testing in LA, and then the rest of the No Roads Tour.
Peter
Analyst, speaking on behalf of Andres Sheppard at Cantor Fitzgerald
Got it. Very helpful. We'll pass it on.
Conference Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Savanthi Scythe with Raymond James. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Savanthi Syth
Analyst, Raymond James
Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Just on the bills, could you provide an update on kind of how many aircraft have been built and what are flying just My understanding is that the kind of the survey, market survey flying can only be done by a certain aircraft and those cannot be used for other kind of R&D purposes or at least not certification purposes. So kind of curious how you allocate then the flying between what you produce.
Benjamin
Flight Test Executive
Sure. Hey, Savit. It's Benjamin. So we're currently building Nine Midnight to use in flight test and EIPP and in LA, as well as multiple Halo aircraft across our manufacturing facilities. And we're also ramping up in the supply base to accelerate the next set of aircraft.
Savanthi Syth
Analyst, Raymond James
I guess then, Benjamin, how are you allocating the, how many aircraft are going to be just doing market surveys? Is that just the Your next question comes from the line of Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank.
Conference Operator
Operator
Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Peter
Analyst, speaking on behalf of Andres Sheppard at Cantor Fitzgerald
Hi. Hello. Can you hear me? Hey, Edison.
Edison Yu
Analyst, Deutsche Bank
Hey. Oh, sorry. Sorry. I had some technical difficulty. Yeah, so just two quick questions for me. One, what do you see as sort of the next important test for the program with Andrew. I know you mentioned the hybrid turboshaft propulsion system. What are the next key milestones? And then separately, you mentioned some of the revenue projections for the Boeing assets. Can you give us a flavor of maybe what your targets might be for revenue next year? Thanks.
Tom Muniz
Chief Operating Officer
Hey, Edison. It's Tom. I'll do the first part of your question. I guess I'll just give you an update on progress for Halo. So Adam mentioned on the call we've already started running the turbo shaft engine. That's basically like the heart of the new hybrid powertrain that we're developing. And that's really the main thing that gives Halo its differentiated payload range and speed, you know, versus midnight. We've also started spinning first electric motors that are going to drive the rotors on that vehicle. And like we've talked about before, Those are really built off the same core tech that we've already developed for midnight, those electric motors. And so that's how we're able to get through the development so quickly as we're using a lot of that same hardware and software. So all of that has put us on track to fly next year. Between now and then, obviously, you'll see hardware coming together, tests being completed, all working up towards that milestone. But things are looking great.
Priya Gupta
Chief Financial Officer
And Edison, your second question. So regarding revenue for In-Situ, right? I think you've heard us talk about it. In-Situ is like operating historically in revenues north of $200 million a year. And what we're going through right now as part of your integration planning activities is to understand and, you know, that core base that they have with the real programmatic revenues across the globe and then see opportunities to potentially grow that in the future. So then we really look forward to sharing more of that with you as we get to the other side of close.
Conference Operator
Operator
Great. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Chris Pierce with Needham. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Chris Pierce
Analyst, Needham
Hey, everyone. Congrats on the progress. Can you just sort of help me understand? I just want to understand on the market survey certificate from the FAA. Is this a specific market survey for midnight in VTOL form? And then can it be grandfathered over once the midnight is flying piloted transition VTOL? Or I just want to make sure I'm following what you guys have actually achieved here specific to what you can do next with what aircraft in the sky.
Benjamin
Flight Test Executive
Hey Chris, this is Benjamin. Thanks for the question. So that's correct. We unlocked market survey for our CTAL aircraft and we also built the kind of the playbook for how to roll through this entire process and do it efficiently and quickly. So we're going to roll that same playbook on the VTOL platform, which we expect to do very much in the near future here. So we'll get through our piloted transition campaign, build the 50 hours, transparently share all that data with the FAA, just like we did it on the CTOL campaign, and roll through in a market survey on VTOL.
Chris Pierce
Analyst, Needham
Okay. And should we be thinking that this is a CTOL aircraft that you're going to certify and you might sell this to potential customers, or this is just a step on the way to VTOL market survey and VTOL OEM operations?
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I think you can think about it as a step along the way. It's not something we intend to sell as a CTAL-only aircraft.
Chris Pierce
Analyst, Needham
Okay, perfect. And then just one more, if I could. Can you, when you talk about piloted transition by year-end, I guess I'd love to just hear what's different now versus, you know, previous conference to that same milestone. Is it something different on the hardware side with the S4? Is it software that's been updated? Batteries? Like, I'd just love to hear what's different now and giving you confidence in the year-end for piloted transition.
Benjamin
Flight Test Executive
Yeah, sure. I'll take that for you. So first off, we've done over 260 piloted test flights at this point, of which over 100 have actually been part of that piloted transition campaign. So we're well on our way. But remember, while we previously transitioned with our autonomous midnight, in our piloted campaign, that bar for rigor in safety is much higher, and in particular in software verification, as again, we previously talked about. So the good news is that we've gotten through that software verification process and we're in good shape. So we're continuing with the campaign. There aren't any surprises so far with that new software. So we're on track for the end of this year and we'll keep you informed.
Amit Dayal
Analyst, H.C. Wainwright & Co.
Okay, sounds great. Thank you and good luck.
Conference Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of James Kirby with JP Morgan. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
James Kirby
Analyst, J.P. Morgan
Hey, good afternoon. Thanks for the time. Maybe just on the Z and SkyGrid update, I think last call you mentioned there'd be some near-term revenue opportunities. Just maybe any update on that into year-end, and maybe is there any hurdles or regulatory obstacles that would prevent you from scaling that as we enter 2027?
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, James. So just as a reminder, Z is our foundation model that we launched back in July, and we've trained it on a whole host of different data, including locations, comms, weather, terrain, and we're leveraging third-party data for that, as well as creating our own proprietary data set that we collect worldwide. And the products that we're building range from airline ops, airspace management, pilot assistance, and we're currently in discussion with and several different groups around pilot programs. This is across groups like governments and airlines. So we'll have to stay tuned there for more on this. So we'll provide more on that in the near term. SkyGrid has built a certifiable ATM platform that is in use today. And the products are common operating picture, flight plan validation, surveillance, deconfliction. And so we're also seeing demand from governments for that, also demand from ANFPs, airports, airlines globally. So hold tight, and we'll provide more on that here in the near future.
James Kirby
Analyst, J.P. Morgan
OK, sounds good. And then second question, maybe just on the EDA airways, I know it seems like a smaller announcement, but Adam, any color on how that came to be and if there's any certification I guess in Europe that you need to go through to get that going as well as any kind of international activity. That'd be great. Thanks.
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, so if you look at how it's played out in the US, we spent a lot of time educating the regulators, the government, the overall community. which I think has gone very, very well. It's gone through us talking. It's gone through flight demonstration. It's gone through building an entire new industry. It's the first new category that the FAA has put out there in many, many decades. And so when the airlines get involved, it's very helpful in really expanding that description and understanding of what we're doing. All we're doing is doing that on a much broader scale, on a global scale now. We've spent a lot of time in the Middle East and now we're starting to do that in Europe as well. It's the same campaign that we're doing really to help the different governments, to help the regulators, to help the consumers understand what we're doing. Having a large flag carrier like ETA is a really good way in Europe to help bring that abroad. We are doing this in close coordination with YASA. And so that is going to be, you know, the regulator that we will deal with there. And of course, the FAA and YASA have spent a lot of time together also working to try to align their certification frameworks.
Conference Operator
Operator
Got it. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Austin Mahler with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Austin Mahler
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
Hi, good afternoon. So if we think about the products from in situ, are you focused more on DOW, NATO, or Middle East allies to create and widen a sales channel there? And what do you view the revenue mix as being between the core UAS products and the payloads? Hey, Austin.
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
The good news is that in situ has been operating for three decades. and has customers in 35 countries. So the answer is really all of the above. So they have customers all over the world. Of course, post the acquisition closing, we'll have more information and understanding the depth of those relationships and our ability to go expand those relationships and agreements. We've spent a lot of time, as you know, on the civil side, talking to many different countries and setting up a lot of the frameworks to bring the eVTOL side. And now we're going to have to do the same thing on the defense side. There are a lot of opportunities on both the core aircraft and the payload side, as well as new products that we've been working on. So Archer today has built some of the most complex vertical lift aircraft that exists between midnight
Tom Muniz
Chief Operating Officer
in the Halo platform.
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
So our ability to go use our existing stack across powertrain and software and our, you know, autonomy capability will be very exciting to go develop new products and ultimately sell that across the existing channel that they have.
Austin Mahler
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
Okay. And I understand we've got transition by end of year. Some of your competitors have indicated that once FAA pilots begin flying themselves in TIA, that they don't always opt to do all the flights that they're considering. How do you view this as potentially accelerating the TC process for Archer?
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
I'm not sure exactly what our competitors are referring to. I think there's a very rigorous flight test plan that, you know, that we are planning on going through. And so I think, you know, each company might have their own approach to it, but I think we're pretty confident in the approach that we're taking.
Austin Mahler
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
Great, I'll pass it back there. Thanks.
Conference Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright and Co. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Amit Dayal
Analyst, H.C. Wainwright & Co.
Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Adam, just with respect to all of the networks coming up in Texas and other states, does Archer need to commit any of its balance sheet to help develop some of this infrastructure?
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks for the question. So we have been working across so far five U.S. networks, L.A., New York, the Bay Area, Miami and Texas. And really, we announced these networks in early partnership with regulators, airports and landlords. And we do that also with key partners like Signature and Atlantic. The sort of the reason we really do that is to help bring everybody along for that journey. to make sure that we're educating groups along the way and really to make sure that we can find these new partners that will help us ultimately finance a lot of this. We've partnered with Beta and Macquarie to launch what we call our ACES network, which is all about interoperability so we can bring low-cost charging to the industry. But it's really about creating the network, bringing lots of partners, and we do not expect it to be a significant use of our capital. Thank you for that.
Amit Dayal
Analyst, H.C. Wainwright & Co.
And then, you know, once this Boeing deal closes, do you get the $55 million at that point, or is that at some later investment stage, you know, investment round? I'm sorry, if, you know, whenever that materializes? Hmm.
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
The $55 million I think you're referring to is a forward equity purchase agreement, which gives us the ability to tap if we would want in the future. So it's not something that we'll just automatically take where we're effectively selling them stock. It's an ability to take that in the future. Okay, understood.
Amit Dayal
Analyst, H.C. Wainwright & Co.
That's all I have, guys. Thank you.
Conference Operator
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Pierce with Needham. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Chris Pierce
Analyst, Needham
Oh, hey, thanks for round two here. Just want to make sure in the letter you talked about passenger trials along with the market survey. I just want to make sure I'm following what should be our expectation. Could we see you fly passengers as part of fetal flight? Or when you're talking about passengers, should we expect that the flow is fetal? VTOL transition, VTOL guest market survey, VTOL passengers. Is there a way to sort of know what is coming down the pipe there? Or is it all sort of up in the air at this point based on how things go as you kind of get more across the sky?
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, thanks, Chris. So the answer is we will be able to do both. That's the plan. and so we brought a plane down to LA. So our plane is sitting at Hawthorne today and over the coming weeks, you'll see us flying in around Hawthorne across our previously announced network. We also do plan on taking the additional aircraft through the transition campaign and then ultimately through market survey as well and flying passengers in 27. So that is still within our plans of expectations. In 27, I plan to be Archer's first passenger in midnight and then we look forward to bringing on additional passenger flights under market survey certification. In LA I do think it is super important though to demonstrate this and to really learn about integrating into America's, some of America's most complex airspace and we'll do that of course hand in hand with the FAA and then we're going to obviously continue evolving the Hawthorne Airport into this future mobility hub that we've been building and that means building out rapid charging, working together with the communities but ultimately all this is refining operations
Conference Operator
Operator
I would now like to turn the call over to Adam for retail questions. Adam, please go ahead.
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
So the question we have here is you're going to be the official air taxi of the 2028 LA Olympics. Will you have air taxi services up and running before that or will you be Will this be your public debut? So as I just mentioned, we have midnight aircraft in LA already and we're going to begin operations in the next couple of weeks. We are now doing all the work with the FAA to chart out all the flight plans, corridors, takeoff and landing locations, charging. All this is about enabling operations for the event. So within the next couple of weeks, people will start to see midnight flying overhead in LA as they're stuck in traffic. and we are trying to bring the community along for this journey, especially as we work towards developing Hawthorne into the central hub of this operation over the next 600 days.
Conference Operator
Operator
And operator, I think that's it. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Adam for closing remarks.
Adam Goldstein
Founder and Chief Executive Officer
All right. I'd like to thank everybody for joining this call. We'll see you next time.
Conference Operator
Operator
Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.