Archer Aviation Stock

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Archer Aviation Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Kate Kiewel, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

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?

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 7 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 3 international airports with the Golden Gate and Bay bridges as a 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 LA and progressing to passenger carrying operations in LA 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 eVTOL Integration Pilot Program and the LA28 Games, each a building block towards type certification and routine urban air mobility operations at scale.

None of this happened by accident. We have been preparing LA for more than 2 years since we announced our planned LA route network in August 2024. In May of last year, LA28 selected Archer as the Official Air Taxi Provider of the 2028 Olympic Games. And 3 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 LA 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 LA sports and entertainment venues. And 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 Northrop Corporation, a company that helped write the last century of American aviation, and I can think of no better place from what to launch the next one. The timing works out in our favor as well, with LA hosting the Super Bowl in February and the LA28 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 on to 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. It is the most rigorous stretch of the program. The FAA team is working alongside us on compliance approvals spanning structures, aircraft level systems and the other key design features of the aircraft with systems and equipment testing underway and we continue to make meaningful progress quarter-over-quarter. On piloted transition, we are in the final push. The aircraft is flying faster with each flight, and we are closing in on completing that milestone by the end of the year.

That progress, together with the success of the No Roads tour, gives us the confidence to keep ramping manufacturing output. And today, we showed 3 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 and Macquarie Capital, is already working on charging at those sites.

Now let me turn to our pending acquisition of Wisk, 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, Wisk and SkyGrid are about accelerating the development, commercialization and scaling of our air taxi business. And our plan for Wisk's autonomy technology has not changed, harden it in our Halo platform first, then bring it to air taxi when the FAA is ready to certify it.

Insitu is about near-term revenue and profitability on the unmanned aircraft systems side. It is one of the most trusted names in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drones profitable with over $200 million in annual revenue across 35 countries, more than 4,000 Group 2 and Group 3 UAS built and fielded with nearly 2 million flight hours and one of the largest operational data sets of its kind.

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 Anduril. 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 Anduril 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 multiyear partnership with Formula 1 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 aligned with our priority commercial markets across the U.S., 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 Anduril and a transaction that will make Boeing our largest shareholder. I have never been more confident in the work we are doing at Archer.

With that, I'll turn it over to Priya.

Thanks, Adam, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'll cover 3 things in the call with you: our third quarter financial results; an update on our planned acquisition of Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu; 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 Anduril for Omen. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $178.5 million, which is at the lower end of our guided range of $170 million 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 Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu 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 believe 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 Insitu brings to us. With operations in more than 35 countries and over 3 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 to ensure we are properly managing liquidity. 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 stand-alone 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 million to $6 million as we pick up our pace of operations at Hawthorne and continue to deliver additional engines and batteries for Omen. 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 beat 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.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Anthony Valentini with Barclays.

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, given you guys kind of went the route of outsourcing most of the parts to speed up the certification time line?

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 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're going to 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 that will be on a longer time scale. 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 will be similar types of dynamics there, too.

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?

Yes. 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.

Yes, not too much more to add. Obviously, we've mentioned we started to deliver against our engine and battery supply contract with Anduril. I 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 Halo platform, Anduril platform and as well as Insitu platforms coming up post transaction close.

Your next question comes from the line of Andres Sheppard with Cantor Fitzgerald.

This is Peter on for Andres. Congrats on the quarter. First, Adam, I'm hoping to touch on big picture. It's clear that Archer is now much more than the eVTOL company. So I guess the question here is, how should we think about the company big picture and the near-term priorities with Insitu, Midnight, eIPP and then Thunder and Halo?

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 $1 trillion air taxi TAM that we -- set the company up to go after and chase. The Halo platform really uses 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 Insitu platform with customers in 35 countries is already generating revenue and ripe for new products that can allow the company to dramatically scale revenue in the near term.

And 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.

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?

Sure, Peter. This is Benjamin. Just a quick update on flight test. 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 8 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 works out. It's really, really smooth. So we're going to take that forward in the further flight testing in LA and then the rest of the No Roads tour.

Your next question comes from the line of Savanthi Syth with Raymond James.

Just on the builds, could you provide a 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 produced?

Sure. Savi, it's Benjamin. So we're currently building 9 Midnight to use in-flight test in 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.

I guess, then Benjamin, how are you allocating those -- how many aircraft are going to be just doing market survey? Is that just the non-piloted Midnight that you have built today? Or are these Midnights going to be ready for -- to allocate between market survey and certification?

Yes. So we will definitely be able to use those Midnight across those multiple purposes, and these are piloted midnights.

Your next question comes from the line of Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes, Edison.

Sorry, I had some technical difficulty. Yes. So just 2 quick questions for me. One, what do you see as sort of the next important test for the program with Anduril? I know you mentioned the hybrid turboshaft propulsion system. What are sort of the next kind of 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?

Edison, this is 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 turboshaft engine. That's basically like the heart of the new hybrid powertrain that we're developing. And that's really the main thing, gives Halo its differentiated payload rate and speed 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.

And Edison, your second question. So regarding revenue for Insitu, right, I think you've heard us talk about it. Insitu is like operating historically in revenues north of $200 million a year. And what we're going through right now as part of the integration planning activities is to understand and -- 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 again, we really look forward to sharing that -- more of that with you as we get to the other side of close.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Pierce with Needham.

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 CTOL form? And then can this be grandfathered over once the Midnight is flying pilot transition to VTOL? Like 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?

Chris, this is Benjamin. Thanks for the question. So that's correct. We unlocked market survey for our CTOL 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 pilot 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.

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?

Yes. I think you can think about it as a step along the way. It's not something we intend to sell as a CTOL-only aircraft.

Okay. Perfect. And then just one more, if I could. Can you -- when you talk about pilot transition by year-end, I guess I'd love to just hear what's different now versus previous conference with that same milestone. Is it something different on the hardware side that 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?

Yes, sure. I'll take that for you. So first off, we've done over 260 piloted test flights at this point, of which 100 -- 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've 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.

Your next question comes from the line of James Kirby with JPMorgan.

Maybe just on the Z and SkyGrid update. I think last call you mentioned there'd be some near-term revenue opportunities. Just maybe how -- any update on that into year-end? And maybe what -- is there any hurdles or regulatory obstacles that would prevent you from scaling that as we enter 2027?

Thanks, James. So just as a reminder, these are 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 sets 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 several different groups around pilot programs. This is across groups like governments and airlines. So a lot 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 validations, surveillance, deconfliction. And so we're also seeing demand from governments for that, also demand from ANSPs, airports, airlines globally. So full tight, and we'll provide more on that here in the near future.

Okay. Got it. Sounds good. And then second question, maybe just on the ITA 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 update on kind of international activity, that would be great?

Yes. So if you look at how it's played out in the U.S., 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, right? 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. And so all we're doing is doing that on a much broader scale, on a global scale now.

So we spent a lot of time in the Middle East and now we're starting to do that in Europe as well. And so 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, and having a large flag carrier like ITA is a really good way in Europe to help bring that data abroad. We are doing this in close coordination with EASA. And so that is going to be the regulator that we will deal with there. And of course, the FAA and EASA have spent a lot of time together also working to try to align their certification frameworks.

Your next question comes from the line of Austin Moeller with Canaccord Genuity.

So if we think about the products from Insitu, 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?

Austin, the good news is that Insitu has been operating for 3 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 and the Halo platform. So our ability to go use our existing stack powertrain and software and our autonomy capability will be very exciting to go develop new products and ultimately sell that across the existing channel that they have.

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?

I'm not sure exactly what our competitors are referring to. I think there's a very rigorous flight test plan that we are planning on going through. And so I think each company might have their own approach to it, but I think we're pretty -- we're confident in the approach that we're taking.

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright & Co.

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?

Thanks for the question. So we have been working across so far 5 U.S. networks, LA, 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 in lots of partners, and we do not expect it to be a significant use of our capital.

Understood. And then once this Boeing deal closes, do you get the $55 million at that point? Or is that at some later investment stage or investment round, I'm sorry, if -- whenever that materializes?

Yes. 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.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Pierce with Needham.

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, like what should be our expectation? Could we see you fly passengers in -- as part of CTOL flight? Or when you're talking about passengers, should we expect that the [indiscernible] is the -- flow is CTOL, VTOL transition, VTOL gets market survey, VTOL passengers? Is there a way to sort of know what is coming down via 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 aircraft in sky?

Yes. Thanks, Chris. So -- the answer is we will be able to do both. That's the plan. And so we have -- 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 and 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 of this is refining operations ahead of the 2028 Olympic Games. So that's largely how we're viewing it.

I would now like to turn the call over to Adam for retail questions. Adam, please go ahead.

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 the 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 of 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.

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.

All right. I'd like to thank everybody for joining this call. We'll see you next time.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Archer Aviation Second Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand the conference over to Kate Kiewel, Head of Investor Relations.

Welcome to Archer's earnings call. This is Kate Kiewel, Archer's Head of Investor Relations. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements that are based on current assumptions. We don't undertake any obligation to update those assumptions as a result of 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 and review the risk factors in our SEC filings. Today, we will also be discussing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these measures is included in our earnings release from today.

Now I'll turn it over to Adam. Adam?

Thanks, Kate. Today marks an important inflection point for Archer. So let me spend some time to walk you through the rationale for the exciting transaction we announced with Boeing earlier today. We entered into agreements to acquire 3 highly innovative Boeing owned companies, Wisk Aero, Insitu and SkyGrid in exchange for Boeing taking a strategic equity stake in Archer. We anticipate closing the transaction by the end of the year. This partnership will help accelerate the evolution you've heard me talk about for a long time.

Archer has diversified aerospace and defense platform with a physical AI product portfolio that will span air taxis, unmanned aircraft systems from Group 2 to Group 5, purpose-built AI for aviation in the vertical technology stack for autonomous flight. Let me walk you through how we got here. I founded Archer with one goal, finding the most efficient path to commercializing air taxis and built a world-class team to do it. We remain incredibly focused on this goal as air taxi will always be core to our mission. And Midnight is well on its way.

We went from an unknown in 2018 to the front of the pack on FAA certification today. Defense, as I've been saying for the last 18 months is becoming one of the largest near-term markets for the eVTOL industry. We first announced our partnership with Andre at the end of 2024 and Palmer Luckey, one of the founders, had come to me with a concept for an autonomous dual-use loyal wingman for attack reconnaissance helicopters like Apache, and they chose Archer's team to build it alongside them.

Since then, our teams have been building this aircraft together. Archer took all our learnings from years of eVTOL development, airframe design, rotors, powertrain and actuation systems, knowledge from the Midnight program and put it into something new, a clean sheet, autonomous hybrid aircraft platform for both commercial and defense. Last month at Farnborough, we jointly billed the Halo/Thunder platform, and I'm confident it is revolutionary, not evolutionary.

Unlike what many others are doing, this is a clean sheet first principles approach targeting both commercial use cases, including logistics, humanitarian, medical and maritime as well as multi-decade defense programs of record with Allied forces. This is why for the past year, we've been assembling a world-class Halo/Thunder team focused on developing this platform. With this transaction with Boeing, we can utilize Wisk's incredible talent to round out that team.

Wisk traces back to Larry Page, who gave this industry at start nearly 20 years ago. and they're right down the road from us here in Silicon Valley. Their engineers have spent nearly 2 decades building some of the most advanced autonomy, flight control and sensor technology in the industry, designed from the start for autonomous flight. The opportunity is clear to me, deploy and harden the technology on Halo/Thunder First and folded into future iterations of the air taxi when the FAA is ready to certify autonomy.

I'm confident that our planned acquisition of Wisk can accelerate the Halo/Thunder program at a fraction of the time it would have taken us to achieve the same results organically. As part of this transaction, we will also acquire Insitu, one of the most trusted and reputable intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, ISR, drone manufacturers in the U.S. It is profitable today with over $200 million in annual revenue across 35 countries. They have built more than 4,000 Group 2 and 3 UAS to date.

Those UAS have flown nearly 2 million flight hours autonomously, giving it the largest data sets of its kind. And that data will feed directly into our autonomy development. Insitu will give Archer an immediate sizable revenue base to grow from. The key driver of this transaction was the relationship we've built with Boeing, especially former Wisk CEO and our VP of Product for Boeing Commercial, Brian Yutko. Boeing is synonymous with American built aviation and the deal structure shows how leaned in they are on our future together, all stock with a lockup, a collaboration across many new fronts, committed future equity investments in Archer, warrants at exercise prices far in excess of our current price.

For both companies, the core of this deal is the opportunity to jointly drive innovation across aerospace, defense and autonomy and deliver long-term value for shareholders. I want to thank Kelly Warburg and the Boeing leadership for the trust and belief in Archer as the right long-term partner. Importantly, I've tasked my team with integrating these companies in a thoughtful, synergistic way that will not structurally increase our overall cash burn.

The focus is clear. On the other side of this deal is a stronger Archer with an end-to-end physical AI platform for aerospace and defense. Last quarter, I called Archer, a dual threat company to our air taxi and dual-use autonomous eVTOL aircraft program. This quarter, we shared more on the strategy for the third key pillar of our diversification approach, purpose-built AI for aerospace and defense. We introduced ZEE, the world's leading aviation specific foundation model. Z is a unified intelligence platform built on ADS-B, ATC communications, maps and charts, aircraft movements, terrain and weather data.

And just last week, we announced that ZEE has delivered a breakthrough in aviation safety, highly accurate real-time prediction of airport surface trajectories. To bring this technology safely into the aviation ecosystem, our teams are working with the government agencies and customers to rigorously validate ZEE in the real world. We couldn't be more excited to pair ZEE with SkyGrid, and we believe, together, those technologies can deliver a next-gen air traffic management product that can play a critical role in modernizing air spaces around the world.

I see a clear path to significant AI revenue, and the team is heads down building toward it. Now let me circle back to Midnight. Through it all, air taxi remains a top priority and the program made tremendous progress this quarter. This quarter, we flew multiple piloted aircraft on an almost daily basis across our fleet. And oftentimes, those aircraft grew multiple times a day in testing across piloted VTOL and CTOL flights, including our first intercity flights here in California.

And over the next few months, you can expect us to begin flying in the L.A. area based out of the Hawthorne Airport and subsequently commenced operations under the White House's eIPP later this year in Texas. We also continued our industry-leading progress against our FAA certification program for Midnight. I believe we remain the only industry OEM to be out of policy and in the fourth and final phase of the FAA's type certification process with a fully accepted means of compliance.

Notably, this quarter, the FAA approved quality management system, which hardens our ability to perform FAA for credit conformity findings across the aircraft as well as its components and systems. We're actively working with the FAA on 4 credit testing this year. On the infrastructure front, we co-launched ACES, the American Consortium for Electric Skyways alongside BETA and Macquarie. It's an industry-first approach to deploy interoperable charging infrastructure across the U.S. and align OEMs on a unified app, which is critical for scale and to lower cost for consumers.

I'm proud to take this on, arm and arm with Kyle and the team at Beta and look forward to welcoming many others who want to join the mission. We are executing all of this from a continued position of financial strength with $1.6 billion in liquidity. I started Archer to change the way the world moves nearly a decade in, I've never been more confident or more all in.

With that, I'll turn it over to Priya.

Thanks, Adam, and good afternoon, everyone. Building on Adam's remarks, the last few months, culminating with today's transaction announcement are truly an inflection point for Archer. With the planned acquisitions of Wisk, Insitu and SkyGrid, coupled with our recent unveiling of Halo, ZEE and ACES, we're rapidly advancing our diversified multi-platform strategy across air taxis UAS and AI to lead the next generation of aerospace and defense. We strongly believe we are uniquely positioned in the sector as we look ahead, both in terms of product portfolio breadth and depth as well as both near-term and long-term revenue generation potential.

Insitu today is a profitable business, generating more than $200 million of revenue in year. That, in addition to our existing air taxi platform, our Halo/Thunder platform and aviation-focused AI solutions will significantly change the profile for Archer and our path to meaningful revenue in the years to come. We're not just an air taxi company anymore. In parallel with our focus on growing our top line, we remain focused on managing our net cash burn. We expect the planned acquisition to bring meaningful synergies across all platforms, Midnight, Halo/Thunder and ZEE.

We will remain disciplined about investment across each of our platforms. Let me share the framework we will use to maintain that discipline quarter-over-quarter. First, advancing the Midnight to certification and scaled operations remains a top investment priority. We expect to generate near-term revenue through early operations, both in the U.S. and internationally, and scale thereafter following certification. Second, for Halo/Thunder, our Group 5 UAS platform with Andre, we've already been investing in technology development over the past 24 months.

And as Adam discussed, we're excited about the potential for the autonomy capabilities from Wisk to further accelerate the development time line. We are focused on getting this platform to market as soon as possible. as it carries a total TAM greater than $100 billion in the decades ahead. Midnight and Halo development time lines with their individual peaks and troughs align well, allowing us to stay focused on efficiently and synergistically leveraging our engineering talent across air taxi and UAS platforms.

Third and its product portfolio -- our near-term goal is for our AI solutions to be revenue generating and profitable as early as next year, with the potential for a significant ramp in the back half of 2027 and beyond. Finally, we expect Insitu to contribute positive free cash flow after closing, allowing the business to operate on a self-funding basis and potentially offset spend in other areas of our business if we are able to grow their business as we expect. Taken together, this framework gives me the confidence that we can grow the top line across our business while post acquisition close and through integration, keep cash burn relatively flat from where it stands today.

Now let's switch gears to the results from the current quarter. I'm happy to report on very strong financial results for Archer. I'll focus on 3 key highlights. First, we continue to maintain a very healthy balance sheet with $1.6 billion in liquidity at the end of Q2. Second, we grew revenue to $5 million for Q2, which is a 213% increase over last quarter. This was driven by our growth in operations at the Hawthorne Airport in LA. Third, we met our spend guidance. Q2 adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $177 million, which is on the lower end of our guidance range of $170 million to $200 million and only a slight increase quarter-over-quarter.

These results are an early indication of our ability to grow the business while staying measured in our use of cash, which is exactly what we must do in this next phase for Archer. For Q3, we estimate our adjusted EBITDA loss to stay within the same range of $170 million to $200 million as we continue to mature the Midnight flight test program including our operations under the eIPP, continued development of Halo and advanced our AI solutions.

Looking ahead, in addition to these key priorities, our focus will be on closing the transaction with Boeing as soon as possible with a target of endo and then integrating the business efficiently and effectively. It all comes back to the old adage, execution matters, and we are committed to delivering against the framework I laid out, maturing our diversified product base to fuel a growing top line, all while controlling spend.

And with that, I will turn it back over to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Savi Syth from Raymond James.

Good afternoon, everyone. Just with the announcement of Halo and Thunder...

You're back now, Savi.

Okay. Great. Sorry about that. Could you -- with Halo and Thunder platform versus the Midnight platform, I was wondering if you could kind of compare and contrast like some of the technical differences there and kind of what it might mean, kind of, from a parts procurement, production scaling, as you work on those 2 kind of platforms in parallel and just how much you can kind of share between the 2?

Savi, this is Tom. Happy to answer that. The way to think about Halo and Thunder is this is a clean sheet new platform targeted at a totally different mission than Midnight. So this new aircraft is targeted at flying heavier payloads much further, much faster than we can do with Midnight, and that's all around the different market that we see both in the defense side. We're a partner with Andrew on the civil side.

And so in order to do that, though, we've been able to leverage a bunch of the core, I'll call them, like technology building blocks that have been put together for Midnight. So those are things like our batteries, electric motors, et cetera. But then obviously, the one new piece of technology is the hybrid system in this aircraft. So by going hybrid, that's how we're able to unlock the ability to travel much further, faster, more payload, et cetera.

In terms of how we're executing on this, still early in the development of the Thunder/Halo platform target is to be in the air next year. and then working towards customer deliveries in '29 and kind of scaling 2030 kind of from there. But progress has been tremendous so far. Interest has been fantastic. So really excited about it.

That's helpful, Tom. And just maybe with kind of the acquisitions announced today, I was wondering if you -- and it's a broader question just beyond the Halo/Thunder. Just how do you envision kind of day 1 to day 365 kind of post-merger in kind of getting the engineering teams from kind of the different businesses to start kind of working together and when you can start kind of realizing some of the synergies or some of the kind of the benefits in accelerating some of these developments?

Savi, this is Adam. So if there ever were 2 eVTOL companies that could come together, it would be Archer's Wisk. And the reason is we both built [indiscernible] architectures but we approached it from a different perspective. So Archer focused on finding the most efficient path to commercialization, while Wisk focused on autonomy and advance fly controls. And so there's really nice overlap, but there's also complementary aspects that make a lot of sense for these companies coming together.

So there's going to be an exploratory period to figure that out. We see it as an incredible enhancement in capabilities and so we're excited to dive in. And there's also a lot of capability overlap and synergies working with in situ as well. So Archer obviously has a lot of experience in vital products and new vital products. And so as we look at the ISR drone market, that is a large but growing significantly in market.

And so there's an opportunity to take a lot of our core technologies there and keep building for that market as well. still early in a lot of this exploration, but that's just a general framework of how we're thinking about it.

Your next question comes from the line of Andres Sheppard from Cantor Fitzgerald.

Okay, everyone. Congratulations on the quarter. And it was great to see everyone at the Farmborough Airshow last month. Adam, lots to unpack here and certainly, a lot of great developments. I guess it's clear to Archer no longer is an eVTOL to company, but really in aerospace, defense and advanced air mobility platform. So I guess my first question -- maybe to build on the last question is in terms of the synergies and overall structure for the company, what are the key synergies that investors should be aware of? How will you prioritize the eVITOL business with the drone business and what are you most excited about today's announcement?

Thanks, Andres. There's a lot of synergies here across the platforms, but there's also a really nice strategic rationale here, where you have the large market of civil passenger carrying aircraft has an incredibly large TAM but also, I would say, some difficulty predicting exactly how fast it will scale and exactly when it will scale. And so we're going through obviously the certification process, which is very rigorous.

And we're doing very well at that. And so as we've looked at accelerating our path towards revenue, the defense side of the business becomes very attractive as there are pathways to launch autonomous products in different air space that are just much easier to get to market more quickly. And so if you think about sort of the portfolio strategy here, there's ability to generate revenue, generate cash flow, use that cash flow to help really get us to profitability much sooner and reduce our burn across the civil markets, which can allow the overall strategy to build much better products and build a much bigger company for the long term while minimizing the dilution.

And so again, this is still early days in us figuring out the exact strategy on how to deploy it. But I think that general framework is how we're thinking about it. and the enhanced capabilities we get from the Wisk platform and site platform and SkyGrid platform gives us a really nice go-to-market that we did not have before.

Excellent. That's super helpful. Maybe just a quick follow-up. Coming back to your recent unveil of your first dual use aircraft jointly built with Anduril. Just help us understand how are you thinking about commercialization of Thunder and Halo and how might those be complementary to Midnight?

Thanks, Andres. So we're building the core platform, the base platform, which we call HALO, and that will have all of the kind of basic functionality that, that aircraft needs to operate. We can then take that aircraft and give it to Anduril which will ultimately missionize that aircraft. And so that's something that Archer is not doing. That's something that Andre is going to be doing for the ultimate end defense products. There, of course, will be different programs of record that, that platform will go out on the Thunder side.

But on the Halo side, there are customers that we will go after that have needs that have a similar use case without any of the defense capabilities. So think search and rescue or offshore energy, areas where you need to carry more payload, much longer distances than what the Midnight platform would be. So we've already announced an earlier customer, which is a Marubeni and there's been a ton of inbound and we've had a lot of interest with existing customers we've been working with to find new solutions.

So the goal will be to find ways to take that platform and build it as quickly as they can, but also really try to minimize the spend on that platform by leveraging a lot of the core capabilities that we've already built from that platform. So like another great example is the flight control system, where we are leveraging a lot of the work that we had started with Midnight, but now we can also enhance with Boeing. So ultimately, the goal is a low-cost platform that can really scale significantly. And by having civil and defense capabilities, you get really both those benefits.

Your next question comes from the line of James Kirby from JPMorgan.

Congrats on the transactions. Maybe just following up, asking in a different way from a previous question. Where do you see Insitu fitting into the longer-term portfolio at Archer? And maybe just could you just speak to the extent you can on the revenue growth drivers in that business?

In the ISR world, the revenues that you see today are largely a result of the macro environment and the sales that happened from years ago. So when you look forward from here, it seems very clear that there will be an increased demand for ISR drones, not just overall, but even new capabilities. And so there is a broad set of new products that are being requested.

And I think there is a huge market growth potential across the broader ISR world. So in the very near term, there will be revenue and cash flow that will be generated from the existing product portfolio. But there's a whole new suite of products that can be built, that could be expanded and generate significantly higher revenue given the macro environment we live in today.

Okay. Got it. I appreciate it. And then for my second question, I wanted to as we unpack the collaboration agreement with Boeing a little bit more. It seems from the shareholder letter and the press release that they'll retain the Wisk autonomous stack for their future aircraft essentially -- does it go further than that in the sense of what you guys are building a Archer with the ZEE platform and now SkyGrid on top of that as well as what you're doing with the Halo/Thunder platform? Does Boeing -- is there more avenues behind just the Wisk autonomous stack?

So the transaction was set up where Archer will own the IP, but we will share the back with Boeing as it relates to products built specifically around flight control systems, autonomy and several other areas. The concept is really one of partnership. So Boeing took all stock in the transaction, they locked up the stock, and we will work together on through a collaboration agreement on enhancing and developing that product portfolio and also future products. Boeing, of course, has an entire suite of plans on both the civil and defense side.

So there are lots of areas that I'm sure that they are interested in, in developing. From the Archer perspective, it gave us the ability to have a head start on a lot of the core autonomy stack, the pathway to certifying the autonomy stack on the civil side and a pathway to deploying the flight autonomy on the defense side. And so it's really a win-win here where by Archer developing this platform across flight controls, flight control computers, full autonomy, Boeing can benefit to. And by them taking all stock, it's really a win-win across across the transaction.

Your next question comes from the line of Austin Moeller from Canaccord Genuity.

For the Insitu acquisition, should we be thinking about this from the context of Boeing already manufactures a variety of like Group 1 through Group 3 or Group 4 drones under that product line and also the the EOIR gimbal payloads that go on them and you can now combine those products with the Group 5 Thunder drone and also incorporates the gimbal payloads on to Thunder, the green version of the Thunder airframe that you could sell commercially or internationally to other MOD?

So Insitu situ manufacturers, the drones themselves, it's not being manufactured by some other Boeing entity. It's all contained within Insitu. And Archer will start producing those drones and looking at ways of scaling up the capabilities there. As it relates to other companies and working with other companies, I think right now, we're going to be focused on really building just the core products that Insitu yourselves and really trying to grow that fleet and not really trying to push that to some other customers like our other partners that Archer has.

And so that's going to be the core focus is how do we get that portfolio in a really healthy spot. How do we take advantage of the macro environment that we're in, where there's an increased demand for these types of products and really try to increase the manufacturing of Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, and Group 4 drones that they manufacture today.

Okay. And if we're thinking about the road map to getting to thunder first flight in 2027, just given it's a dual tilt rotor design, can you just talk about some of the puts and takes a challenges to get to that point next year?

Austin, this is Tom. Well, like I was mentioning to Savi earlier, while the aircraft looks pretty different, standing 100 feet away. If you look under the skin, the platforms, the systems onboard are really similar. So again, flying with the battery technology, same electric motor technology, same flight control software.

In fact, we literally took the actual code that flies midnight put it in the sim for halo and the aircraft flew beautifully without any control design specific to the platform, which obviously will go do. So certainly, there's a lot of hard work for the team. We're excited about partnering with some of the new folks joining as part of this deal and feel really good about it.

[indiscernible] From Dutch Bank. Please go ahead.

Congratulations on the deal today. First thing I want to ask is, you've obviously picked up quite a few assets over the last couple of years, right, you think of over air, if you think of the lining patents. I guess what is the vision here on putting together all these assets. And I think with with you obviously have a lot of autonomy step. So just -- could you maybe share the vision. You have all these assets and include, you got some of them for a very good price. What is the vision on putting these out together and what we will get?

Thanks, Edison. This is Adam. So some of the previous acquisitions we've done that focused a lot on the early patent portfolios that existed in the eVTOL space were a result of companies that were either shutting down or going out of business. And so I think that was pretty different where there were groups that had spent hundreds of millions or in some cases, greater than $1 billion developing IP that was available for us to pick up at a very low dollar cost.

And in fact, we're heavily competed across the eVTOL community as there were some very interesting IP there. As it relates to Wisk, Insitu and SkyGrid, that is a -- it's a totally different and unique value proposition. A lot of this just came about as there are products and platforms that I think are actually more valuable as it relates to Archer than might have been in the hands of Boeing.

So for example, Boeing is focused on some of the biggest platforms in the world. So big platforms like in F-47 or 737, Insitu is a much smaller company. That impact to Archer is substantial versus the impact even if Insitu is 5x would have minimal impact to Boeing. So our investment in that platform can have substantial rewards in the very near term. And so in a lot of the cases that these assets actually can perform much better on our side, the same thing as it relates to air traffic control.

So the ATC product, SkyGrid is highly attractive to us for 2 reasons. One is it's a -- there is a macro environment where traffic control needs to get upgraded. And two, we've been building this foundation model ZEE, that's highly complementary to that product that really can enable that product in a way that they couldn't have done by themselves. So by combining them together and allowing Archer to focus on it, we can get to market in a new space that is, I think, going to be ultimately very valuable, but we'll start out small. Again, probably more difficult for a larger company to go after just because of the size of the starting base.

Got you. And just a follow-up on Boeing, obviously, Boeing is now a partner, a very big investor in onshore. How does one think about the future areas of collaboration. I don't know if you can elaborate more than always announced in press release. It seemed like this is pretty long term. You clearly entrust you guys a lot. Any kind of color you can provide there?

I don't want to speak for Boeing and speculate on -- from their perspective. But what I'm hopeful is that Archer can be a great partner to Boeing and by building a lot of these advanced capabilities and really taking the torch and completing the task on a lot of the products that they had built and then sharing some of that IP back with Boeing to enable some of the products. I think that would make it a true win-win. And that's really my goal.

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Dayal from H.C. Wainwright & Co.

Congrats on today's announcement. Really interesting setup for you guys going forward. Adam can you maybe just provide some additional color on what allows you to keep the burn rate contained despite recent developments with Ander and Boeing.

Sure. So I can't say much as it relates to the transaction just given where we are in that process. But as I mentioned before, if there ever were 2 companies that could come together, these are really attractive because we have the same architecture to start. So there's a lot of great synergies there where we can be working on.

The second is we do have multiple programs on the defense programs. The goal is to have programs ultimately on where R&D dollars can be created. And then Insitu also provides a platform to generate cash flow. And so when you put all the stuff together, we work really hard to do this, but the goal is to keep the cost structure similar.

Understood. And then just a follow-up. In terms of the next set of milestones for Halo Thunder, can you maybe give us some sense of what some of those catalysts could be?

Yes, it, this is Tom. So like I mentioned, we're working hard to get the aircraft in the air next year. And obviously, in the background, there's work going on, on the kind of customer program side that I can't get into the details on. But we're pretty confident we'll be in the next year and then the ideas the whole idea of going to market with the defense product first or I should say, the defense variant of the dual use vehicle is that the certification pathway is much more straightforward.

So like this first vehicle will have a military specific airworthiness and then will incrementally be increased from there as we get into civil markets. And so that really just provides a great setup to take this technology that's already been hardened on Bindi and get it out there in flying products very rapidly.

[Operator Instructions] [indiscernible] our retail question. Adam, please go ahead.

Thanks. There's been a lot of questions on Archer's priorities, commercial versus defense? And how should we think about -- which will be the larger revenue driver and profitability? So we are certainly not taking our eye off the prize on Midnight. Midnight is core to our platform here at Archer, and we will work on that platform and get it to market. But defense does give us a pathway to deploy products faster and that does come with revenue and learnings. And now with Insitu, we'll be generating substantial revenue in a high-growth industry, which can help bridge the path to getting to profitability sooner.

And so with Thunder, we'll look at the Halo/Thunder platform. We're looking at several multi-decade programs of record with Allied forces, but the commercial markets will remain the larger market, and we have not taken our eye off the prize there.

At this time, there are no further questions I will now turn the call back to Adam for closing remarks. Apologies I actually have one more question from the line of Savi Syth from Raymond James.

Could you kind of briefly talk about -- I think Priya mentioned that maybe software generating kind of revenue and profitable by kind of the half of next year. just generally kind of what needs to happen on that line to kind of get that generating cash flow?

Sure, Savi. So I think part of this has to do with ZEE, which is our Archer's Aviation Foundation model. And so the way to think about it is Americas Aerospace moves over 3 million people per day, and it's built on systems from decades ago. And the data behind all those flights are siloed from cockpits to towers. And so ZEE turns that data into a single intelligence layer that gives pilot airline operators a window into the future.

So thanks better decisions, safer, more efficient operations. So we need like the brain and we're building products that will span 3 markets: pilot applications, air traffic management and airline operations. And we've designed it to be built anywhere that aviation is needed, whether it's in the cloud or on the edge, which is fully offline. So it's not theoretical. These are already discussions we're having with government agencies, industry partners, and in early deployments. So the goal is to take those products, send them out into the market. We've seen a lot of interest in them and start producing revenue and ultimately, profitability.

Got it. And then if I might, just on the eIPP and flying in LA. Just wondering kind of the kind of the progression there, what milestones you need to kind of meet flying in LA before you start working on eIPP, just any high-level kind of slight testing update.

Savi. So first, just real quick at the high-level testing update. We've actually we've flown over 150 piloted test flights and we're flying up to 5 times a day and many flights over 50 miles, and we're flying between airports now. So -- and of course, we're on track to full transition later this year. So lots of great progress on the piloted flight test front. With regards to eIPP, as we talked about last quarter, you can expect us to begin that initial eIPP operations later this year and that plan is largely on track. And so we'll start with CTOL and then we've got more aircraft coming on at the end of this year and beginning of next year, and then we'll roll further as we go. So I think that probably captures your question back to you.

[indiscernible]

[Audio Gap] for Archer. I think a broader industry, I'm grateful for everyone here at Archer for all their tireless work and I also want to say how appreciative I am of Kelly Ortberg and the Boeing team for their trust throughout this transaction that we announced this morning. So thank you, everyone, for joining, and we look forward to sharing more over the course of the quarter.

This concludes today's call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Archer Aviation Company Q1 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. I will now hand the conference over to Kate Kiewel, Head of Investor Relations. Kate? Please go ahead.

Welcome to Archer's earnings call. This is Kate Kiewel, Archer's Head of Investor Relations. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements that are based on current assumptions. We don't undertake any obligation to update those assumptions as a result of 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 and 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 our earnings release from today.

Now I'll turn it over to Adam. Adam?

Thank you, and good afternoon. I want to start by stepping back because the opportunities unfolding across the aerospace and defense market right now are massive. The future is arriving all at once, and the investments we are making across our civil, defense and AI software businesses are forming a flywheel that increasingly reinforces itself.

We are seeing that momentum unfold across the ecosystem. The U.S. government is leaning in. President Trump, the DOT and the FAA delivered the eVTOL integration pilot program last year, creating real-world testing environments for next-generation aircraft. And recently, Archer was selected as a partner and 3 of the winning EIPP applications across 8 states. We are on track to begin flying under that program in U.S. cities later this year.

Simultaneously, this administration is targeting to deploy over $20 billion for ATC modernization, an investment that would unlock new levels of safety and throughput across the national airspace. Foreign governments are following suit. -- the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Korea, Japan and numerous others are building infrastructure and accelerating regulatory pathways to position themselves at the forefront of this new form of transportation.

The largest airlines worldwide are also recognizing this moment in stepping up. We already work with 7 of them across our businesses and our multibillion-dollar order book for midnight continues to grow. In the world's biggest stages are eager to showcase this future. We are collaborating closely with the LA '28 Olympic Games, DOT, FAA, surrounding communities and other stakeholders to plan our launch of air taxi operations as the official provider for the games.

It will be millions watching as the future is being built in America. Let's focus on our air taxi progress. The reason we are positioned where we are today, a leader in the industry, traces back to the decisions that we made on day 1. Archer's path to commercializing eVTOL has always been rooted in our first principles approach designing a safe passenger-carrying aircraft, purpose built for rapid back-to-back trips of 20 to 50 miles in urban environments at low cost with a low noise profile.

When I entered this sector, most of the competitors had spent a decade cycling through configurations. Archer committed very early on to a partial tilt architecture designed for the air taxi use case and for FAA certification from day 1. That discipline has compounded. Eight years in, no 1 else in the eVTOL industry has moved as fast as we have. And while the majority of our team is battling day to day to get through the final phase of certification and bring this new mode of transportation to market I am focused on ensuring we future-proof our ability to scale.

A type certifiable design is not enough. It requires us to solve 2 additional challenges. The first key unlock is industrial scale. We need to continue pushing our entire industrial base forward here in the U.S., which will deliver meaningful cost and performance improvements with each new generation of midnight, advanced materials, new manufacturing processes, further advanced propulsion systems and components built for volume production on the scale of autos.

We have to prove out these innovations before the FAA will allow us to use them in commercially certified aircraft. We will deploy them first in autonomous attritable dual-use aircraft for cargo and defense and then flow these technologies back to future iterations of midnight, helping unlock step-change improvements in cost and performance.

This is just 1 example of how our 3 business lines compound on 1 another. The second key unlock is modernizing our national airspace. Americas aerospace today is a limiter on America's GDP growth. and we have to give it the ability to scale. While it can likely safely handle the additional traffic -- we expect over the next 3 to 5 years, the long-term scale of air taxis and AAM will require the U.S. to rework the infrastructure and software underlying air traffic control.

The good news is this administration and in particular, Secretary Duffy and Administrator Bedford, get this and are tackling it head on. Today's system was not built for the volume or the kind of traffic that's coming over the next decade. This is why we have partnered with category-defining technology leaders, including Palantir, which was recently down selected as a finalist for the FAA's SMART program as well as NVIDIA and Starlink, both of which will bring next-generation capabilities to midnight.

We are focused on bringing the most innovative technologies to address the challenges we face. These are not adjacencies. They are the imperatives that will drive the flywheel unlocking massive scale, but they are years-long efforts. The time to invest is now. And the good news is we are already executing against all of them.

Let me turn to how we executed this quarter. We had a banner quarter on certification. Archer became the first eVTOL company to close Phase II of the FAA's 4-phase type certification process, and we have been advancing Phase I in parallel for some time now.

Coupled with that exciting progress, this was also our most expensive quarter for our flight test program with piloted Vtal and STAL flights across our expanded midnight fleet on a nearly daily basis and often multiple times a day.

This quarter, we also took over operations at Hawthorne Airport in L.A. We have begun modernizing it, so it can serve as an air taxi and mobility hub for the city of L.A. and its surrounding communities, and as our innovation hub for the next-generation aerospace technology we are developing with our partners.

On the defense side, our work with Anderol continues to accelerate. As I discussed, in my letter to the shareholders, defense procurement is a performance and cost equation. You cannot retrofit your way into the right solution. You must take a first principles approach. Our partnership with Anderol is doing just that. We chose to partner with Anderol because, among other strengths, they deeply understand what the U.S. and its allies need a next generation of BTL aircraft beyond the legacy programs that have been entrenched for 50-plus years.

Together, we have designed and begun building our clean sheet hybrid aircraft, drawing on the technologies. Archer has developed for midnight and the IP we acquired from Karam over air and William. The window for these decades-long programs of record are approaching fast, and we will be ready.

I continue to be amazed by what our teams can do. I firmly believe the Archer Anderol team is 1 of the greatest aerospace teams of this generation. top technical fellows from Boeing, former Chief Engineer from Lockheed, leading PhD researchers from Stanford. You only get a chance to be part of a team like this once.

I believe our hybrid dual-use autonomous aircraft will be the most sophisticated vertical lift platform ever developed in its category. It is not incremental. It is generational. When people see what we have built, they will recalibrate their beliefs about what America can field. I cannot wait to show it off, stay tuned.

Archer is now a multi-threat company. We expect to start initial air taxi operations in U.S. cities begin winning phased government defense awards and begin to deploy our AI solutions later this year. And we are executing from a position of strength with $1.8 billion in liquidity. I have never been more confident in what Archer is building. We're more proud of the team building it.

With that, I'll turn it over to Priya.

Thanks, Adam, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll now take you through the key financial highlights for the quarter and provide our guidance for Q2. We continue to maintain a very healthy balance sheet with $1.8 billion in liquidity, 1 of the strongest positions in our sector.

And with less than $100 million in debt, our liquidity is clean, flexible and fully available to fund our strategic priorities without the overhang of significant leverage. Our spend for Q1 came in on guidance, a reflection of the rigor and intentionality we bring to every capital allocation decision. As discussed in our last call and in line with the updates Adam shared today, this planned increase in our spend directly correlates to the opportunities we are seeing across civil, defense and software and the platforms we are building in each of those areas that we believe will allow us to capture a meaningful portion of the market.

Our revenue for Q1 began to grow as we expanded operations at the Hawthorn Airport in L.A. We expect this revenue to increase in Q2 and as we continue to progress our plans to modernize that airport and its operations. Looking ahead, as we advance our commercial readiness with midnights expanded flight test program and operations under the EiPP and NLA, make advancements in the design, development and build of our next-generation hybrid autonomous aircraft platform and advance our AI software platform, we expect to slightly increase our investments for the quarter.

For Q2, we estimate our adjusted EBITDA loss to be in the range of $170 million to $200 million. This expansion of our investment reflects our level of conviction in the multibillion dollar opportunities in front of us, not a deviation from discipline. We believe our multi-platform strategy is what separates Archer from the field, and our liquidity gives us the strength to execute it. And with that, I will turn it back over to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Andres Sheppard from Cantor Fitzgerald.

Congrats on all the great progress so far. Adam, for the first question, I wanted to touch on maybe defense and autonomy. It's sounding more and more that this is going to be a big focus for Archer going forward. So -- just curious if you could maybe give us a bit more color there? What kind of opportunities might you be pursuing? Or are you excited about to the extent that you can talk about it? But how should we think about defense and autonomy for Archer going forward? .

Thanks, Andreas. I'm going to let Tom answer that question to go through some of the defense opportunities. And as you might recall, explained in the past, Tom has been leading the defense platform, while Benjamin has been really pushing hard to get the midnight platform through certification, but I'll turn it over to Tom. .

Andres, Well, Adam touched on some of the themes earlier in the call, but just to kind of like recap how we thinking about defense. Going back to the beginning of Archer, it was all about building towards a mission and taking a first principles approach -- and so midnight was optimized around this mission of moving people in and out of cities optimized for low cost, high safety, low noise and obviously, design bottoms up for certain manufacturing.

So initially, if you looked at if we could use a version of midnight for defense, and we did work with Air Force over the years, and there might be some niche applications there, but for the significant opportunities, the ones with the largest need that we're targeting now, you can't expect to modify midnight and have that function well for this different mission like it just doesn't make sense.

So -- as we've said, we're developing clean sheet new aircraft, that's a hybrid vehicle, partnering with Anderol. And so again, we've taken this first principles approach for that aircraft, but it's obviously optimized around a different mission. So this dual use mission we're looking at has very specific payload speed range cost targets, obviously, quite different from midnight.

So I can't get into the details on any of those numbers, but we're now like pretty far into the development of this vehicle, and I'm confident it's going to be a pretty incredible machine. So based off of that progress and what we've seen from some of the customers that we're targeting, we've got a really strong conviction and optimism that our aircraft is going to be selected for some of these very large opportunities that are coming up in defense. So our goal is to show that aircraft later this year and ultimately win some of these phase down selects this year. So super exciting time.

Wonderful. Got it. That's super helpful. I appreciate all that color. And maybe just as a quick follow-up. I'm curious if we can get an update on piloted transition flight. Any updates there? Or when should we be targeting it?

Andres, this is Benjamin. Thanks for the question. Like we were saying, we're already very much in the midst of our piloted Vital test campaign, and we've been rapidly expanding our cadence. So we're flying multiple aircraft multiple times a day. And really, the focus right now is on progressing and advancing through more and more complex test points ahead of full transition.

So really central to that is the software verification and validation. -- which requires a higher level of rigor for piloted operations. So we're working through that methodically, and we're confident in the time line. And just a little bit more color on that. We moved through the HOVR regime, which is that first phase faster than any prior phase.

And this is the fastest we progressed from a first flight through this point in a test campaign and also with the fewest issues. So we're not too far away, but it will be in the second half of the year, and our goal is to complete piloted transition and enter EIPP operations this year. .

Your next question comes from the line of Edison Yu from Deutsche Bank. .

I wanted to ask about the ATC modernization efforts that you cited and the need for it in the U.S. Can you give us a sense what kind of ecosystem you envision for this? And sort of what are the roles of the various parties, whether it's some of those partners that you mentioned, like Pantera, the airlines, -- just how the kind of stakeholders everything kind of comes together to get this ATC modernized? .

Thanks, Edison. This is a new and really evolving discussion that's taking place right now. But -- the good news is we've been working on our broader AI products, specifically around ATC solutions for several years now. And there are lots of different groups that are participating. Palantir, for example, 1 of our partners is participating in the Smart program.

And whether Palantir wins or not, I think Archer has an opportunity to be part of the modernization effort as we've already built a lot of tools that I think can add a lot of value. We haven't shown our solutions publicly as it's still a very competitive space, but we do intend to show it pretty soon. So more on that to come. .

Okay. And -- and then just on -- back to the, call it, the commercial side. I know you talked about scaling and the importance of that. As you kind of do your work and evaluate the manufacturing process, what are you finding to be the biggest bottleneck, if any? And how are you sort of addressing those?

Today, a lot of our work really has to do with getting the aircraft through the certification process. And we got through the third phase of certification, which was a big deal because completing all that really unlocked our ability to go through now the TIA process. .

When your music appliance is not finished, that means you likely have existing issue papers, which are things that you are unwilling to agree to, meaning things that you can't actively solve. So when we solved all those and we're able to agree, it really unlocked really our ability to keep moving through this process and ultimately get through TIA and certification.

On the manufacturing front, a lot of the work that we're doing has to do with putting the processes and manufacturing tools and equipment in place to allow us to scale. We have put in place as we've been building out this first initial fleet of 8 to 10 aircraft, but ultimately building towards that 50 aircraft per year production capacity. So we've been working through the tooling to go do that. And really, it has to do with the time line of type certification. So once we get through the certification side, we can really scale our production side. Of course, all of this is just trying to balance the EIPP with our own certification flight test program with the launch addition program.

Your next question comes from the line of James Kirby from JPMorgan.

Maybe just following up with the previous questions. You mentioned on advancing you're working in Phase I for some time now. Do you mind just expanding on that in terms of what milestones are left or what should we be looking for, for what remains for progress in that stage.

Sure. This is Benjamin. So as we talked about, we just completed Phase III, and we're deep in the Phase I. And what this really means is we don't have any unsolvable technical challenges, and we're deep in execution. So -- our -- while this is not easy, the rules are in place and we've got our maintenance of compliance done. So the next step is really in making sure that all of our seats, which are now materially in final form, working with the FAA in order to get through those administrative processes to get full approval.

Okay. That makes sense. I appreciate that. I guess for my second question, there was a house bill that was signed last month in Florida for Virtiport network build out. Adam just your thoughts there in terms of the infrastructure build-out needed to align with the EIPP. Is there more needed? How do you expect that to ramp up kind of over the next 3 years once the EIPP starts? .

Yes. The infrastructure is really going to be kind of a mix of public private partnerships. So we've been working on the infrastructure side for several years now. And so domestically, we focused on a lot of what turned out to be the EIPP markets, New York, Florida and then ultimately California.

On the New York side, we worked with the Port Authority and then some of the private airports. On the Florida side, we've worked with related hard rock, and we're targeting from Miami only up to West Palm Beach. In California, Los Angeles has been our kind of central focus where we took control of the Hawthorne Airport. We partnered with SoFi Stadium, USC and then a bunch of the major FPOs ahead of 2. And so you're seeing really this nice mix of groups that are coming into place.

As it relates directly to the EIPP, we're still really finalizing a lot of the details with the different cities, with the different specific routes. And so there's still more to come. But what it's really done is really opened up the level of interest, and we've now seen just a lot of folks that want to partner on this side. And so I think you'll start to see that expand. We've also done a lot of work with beta and really talking through the charging infrastructure that is going to be necessary there.

And so I think you'll see the industry come together, the different cities come together and then public partner -- public-private partnership come together to build all the infrastructure needed.

Your next question comes from the line of Austin Moeller from Canaccord Genuity.

So just my first question, can we talk about the restricted pipe significant that was issued for the midnight in the UAE -- and what kind of flight test can be performed under the restricted type certificate? And can that data be fed back to the FAA to facilitate certification in the U.S. .

Yes. Thanks, Austin. So what we've been working on with the UAE has been transitioning midnight into the restricted type certificate program. And this is just a difference from what we have been previously working on, which was called the type of qualification -- and the restricted-type certification program is more of an internationally recognized pathway that would allow Midnight to begin limited commercial operations.

We are still working through that. This will help us launch -- accelerate our launch addition program in the UAE and allow for early commercial operations in Abu Dhabi, which we work with Abi Dhabi Aviation to fulfill. But ultimately, what it does is gives us an ability to generate early revenue and early real-world flight experience. .

Okay. And I was wondering if you could comment on the opportunity to help improve the aerospace infrastructure with Palantir -- do you see that as providing software or hardware to or specifically software to the FAA to deconflict aerospace? Or do you view it more as using EV tolls as a vector to test these technologies before they're implemented on aircraft nationwide?

A lot of this is still new and being worked on. But from the Archer perspective, we've been working on the application layer, so actual software that would be used. And we think about this, because the sort of the flywheel that we need to create. We're not just building aircraft. We have to build aircraft that ultimately can scale. And because the air traffic control system is constrained. It will limit what we can do. So we want to participate in any way we can, even if it meant that we are ultimately not generating significant amount of revenue, it's still really valuable in order to help the larger flywheel of the industry expand. That being said, we do have some very neat products that we've been working on that ultimately, I do think will become adopted and can generate significant revenue. So we've really focused more on the application layer versus a Palantir of the world that's focusing more on the integration layer. .

Your next question comes from the line of Savanthi Syth from Raymond James.

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I think this Edison's question, if I might follow up on. Just curious how many aircraft have you built with this kind of current configuration where you're doing -- plan to do transitions like as well? And just kind of curious, as you launched the EIP program, and you're doing certification as well? Like how many aircraft do you expect to need and to have built this year? .

Thanks, Savi. So we have 2 aircraft that are flying today, and we're still working through that initial fleet of 8 to 10 aircraft. Those are going to be allotted across the flight test program, EIPP launch edition as well as we're putting in place the infrastructure to ramp production to up to 50 aircraft per year. So it's really a mix of the two. .

Got it. That's helpful. And just another follow-up on the defense side. I know your -- you have some U.S. programs that you're going after. You also have some U.K. I was curious if there's any pacing that we should consider between the U.S. and U.K. program? .

Savi, this is Tom. But as you're aware, there's interest around the world for vehicles like we are developing now with Anderol. So there is an active program that the U.K. is working through their kind of procurement process that we're competing for, along with Anderol. So I can't talk about any details there, but I think it just goes to show that the opportunity is massive. It's not just 1 country.

And I'll kind of follow up there as well, Savi, there's new capabilities that have become very clear that the global governments are interested in. And as we've identified those new opportunities, it has just become very clear that there is an aircraft that we can build that can meet that need, and it can leverage a lot of the the tools, the systems, the supply chain that we've already put in place for the core midnight aircraft, even though it's a new type of aircraft.

That being said, we've taken the Anderol approach where we are doing early ahead of these programs being announced because by the time they get announced, we want to be in a position to win them. And as we've gone down that path, what we're building has turned out to be pretty incredible, and that's why we've had a lot of confidence in this product will become very interesting around the world.

And so you'll have to wait and see what happens. I guess we'll all have to wait and see what happens, but we have an increased level of conviction that the aircraft that we're building is going to have global demand and become very interesting.

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Dayal from HC Wainwright &Co.

Congrats on all the progress. I had 1 question on the burn for this year. How much of that is going towards manufacturing preparedness? .

Thanks, Amit. So let me just give the bigger picture here, and then I'll let Priya just provide some more specifics. So we are executing a multiplatform strategy across Civil and Defense. And in the defense side, it's a generational product. It's not something that's simply being hybridized, so that does take real investment -- but the good news is that we have already obviously invested in a world-class engineering team, infrastructure, testing assets, and we're deploying that across both of our platforms.

But as our certainty has increased that we will win some of these defense contracts -- it's given us the ability to go out there and spend more. So the good news is if we do win a defense contract, there will be dollars awarded, which will help offset the spend. If we don't want a defense contract, we will immediately cut the spend. So you'll likely see some -- a few quarters of elevated spend followed by a potential to reduce that from current levels.

And Amit, I mean, just digging a little bit deeper, right, specific to the quarter that you talked about earlier, we're ramping spend in 2 core areas. Adam talked about our increased spending on the defense platform. And then on the other one, as you rightly highlighted, right, on the Midnight program as we're advancing our commercialization effort -- we are increasing our spend in midnight for the slightest expansion and ramping the production efforts ahead of the operations in EIPP and other launch markets. So again, we expect this elevated levels to be short-lived. -- and then potentially come down thereafter. .

Understood. And just a follow-up to that is, is there any certification activity going on for the manufacturing facilities that are in place so far? .

Yes, there is. And so we've been working through the production certificate as well. And so we will try to time that as well with our type certificate progress. .

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Pearce from Needham.

Just 1 big-picture question and 1 kind of near-term question. I guess when I hear you guys talk about the defense opportunity, is there a world where in 3 to 5 years, Archer is primarily a defense company and the midnight sort of I mean backburn is not the right word, but it's something where you see an opportunity? You're winning contracts, you're ramping your manufacturing there, and that's a large company and that sort of a path? Or will you always sort of want to work on both these paths because of both opportunities? .

It's a good question, Chris. From a big picture perspective, I think the opportunity for civil products is substantially larger than the opportunity for defense products because we're talking about global use by the consumers. And so the analogy or sort of example I'd like to give is if you think about selling a few dozen of aircraft in the top 1,000 markets, you can build or sell over $100 billion worth of aircraft. So that is a pretty large number to think about. On the defense side, it will be more targeted, and it will go to U.S. allies for specific use cases.

So I do think that the defense market will ultimately be smaller. That being said, the beauty of the defense market is you can start to deploy some of these aircraft, not going through the same type of FAA-type certification process, which means it could be faster -- and you can also start to use advanced materials and advanced processes that can ultimately lead to a better civil product.

And so that's the flywheel that we are trying to create. We're trying to build amazing products that reinforce each other that ultimately allow for a big market in both. But I do think it's the type of thing where we will be involved in both. But ultimately, I think the civil products will be bigger.

Okay. And then more near term, going back to Savi's question, it sounds like you have the 2 aircraft now working to build more, but you need to keep a certain amount of aircraft, I'm assuming in Northern California or in Hawthorne, I guess now what should we expect for EIPP deployment? Should it be multiple aircraft per site? Or will it be more likely one aircraft and maybe more likely flying fetal cargo? Or like what would be disappointing, what would be upside surprise. I just want to get a sense of where expectations should be. .

So we are still in talks with the different EIPP markets and partners and we're waiting to see the different cities and routes that ultimately come to fruition. But we are balancing our own certification process against EIPP opportunity against the launch edition opportunity. And so we are building to be able to support all 3 of those but we're going to have to weigh those different opportunities. And as there's more clarity on it, we'll start to give you more detailed information. .

And now I would like to turn the call over to Adam for our retail questions. Adam, please go ahead.

So we received a question that I thought was a bit more personal that might relate to a lot more people. And it was I'm a real person who doesn't have an apartment in New York who won't be flying to its house in the Hamptons. So how will I be able to use midnight? .

I think it's a great question. I think it's an important one. So this product was not designed for the rich. It was designed for the masses. We are targeting use cases that are applicable to most people. So a typical example that we like to give is flying from city center to an airport. So I grew up in Tampa, Florida, and it took me an hour to get to the airport.

But if you're able to fly over the water and fly 150 miles per hour in a straight line, that would be a real short cut. If I was able to do that at a similar cost of ride share, that would be an attractive alternative as just another normal guy growing up in Florida. So hopefully, you can see yourself in a product like this and know it is made for everyone and not just for the select few.

Thank you very much. There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Adam for any closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for dialing in and listening to us. We'll talk to you next time.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending today's Archer Aviation Company Q4 '25 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Tamia, and I will be your moderator for today's call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Kate Kiewel, Head of Investor Relations. You may proceed.

Welcome to Archer's earnings call. This is Kate Kiewel, Archer's Head of Investor Relations. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements that are based on current assumptions. We don't undertake any obligation to update those assumptions as a result of 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 our shareholder letter and earnings release from today.

Now I'll turn it over to Adam. Adam?

Thanks, Kate. At Archer, we are building a next-generation aerospace company with civil and defense applications. We have formed an ecosystem with some of the best partners in the world from Anduril to SpaceX to NVIDIA. We have great momentum, and I'm excited to walk you through it today. I published a more detailed shareholder letter that I encourage everyone to read. I'm going to keep my remarks relatively brief and dedicate most of this call to Q&A from analysts and retail investors.

Last year, our pilots took Midnight through its CTOL campaign, flights over 50 miles, over 30 minutes of flight time at altitudes above 10,000 feet and speeds exceeding 150 miles per hour. And we have now begun Midnight's piloted VTOL flight test campaign. We will continue to expand our piloted Midnight fleet and the flight envelope throughout 2026, enabling us to begin TIA activities with the FAA as soon as this year.

As we expand our flight test program, we are simultaneously preparing to be ready for air taxi operations. We are on track to begin deploying Midnight this year, both in American cities as part of the White House's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, or eIPP, and in the UAE as part of our commercial launch program.

Before we go into our plans for the UAE this year, I want to acknowledge the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East. Our team and partners in the region are in our thoughts, and their safety will always be our top priority. We will continue to monitor the situation closely. Despite that current uncertainty, we remain focused on rapidly progressing our commercialization strategy in the UAE.

I am pleased to share that Archer is the first eVTOL manufacturer to establish a Restricted Type Certificate program with the GCAA, which sets us up to deliver additional Midnight aircraft to the country this year for piloted and passenger carrying operations, while simultaneously building out our network of certified vertiports across Abu Dhabi.

While our team is hard at work commercializing the United States and the UAE, our global backlog continues to grow. Our order book is in the billions with 7 of the world's largest airlines choosing to partner with us. Some new partners include Saudi Arabia's PIF and the Serbian government. The commercial momentum is real, and it is built on a certification strategy that we've been executing against for 7 years. This quarter, the FAA confirmed its final acceptance of 100% of Midnight's Means of Compliance. I believe this makes us the first eVTOL company to achieve this level of progress with the FAA. Completing Midnight's Means of Compliance unlocks the ability to finish the next phase, finalizing its remaining certification plans. We expect those to get there in the coming quarters, clearing the path for TIA work to begin on the program as soon as this year.

Our partnership with Anduril is central to our defense strategy. We are designing an autonomous, hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft built for dual use, a loyal wingman for defense, and cargo or medevac for commercial customers. We remain optimistic about winning a major defense contract this year.

We are always looking for opportunities to apply the proprietary technologies we have developed for our commercial aircraft to other adjacent applications. In November, we announced our first third-party powertrain deal with Anduril and EDGE Group to power their Omen autonomous air vehicle. Anduril spent 5 years searching for a propulsion solution for Omen, and I'm proud they chose ours.

Beyond commercial aircraft and defense, we see a third opportunity, software. We partnered with Palantir for next-generation air traffic control, movement control and route planning. We are working with NVIDIA to integrate their IGX Thor platform into Midnight for safety-critical autonomy applications, and we are working with SpaceX's Starlink to bring high-speed, low-latency connectivity to our aircraft. We plan to unveil our first software product in this category later this year.

Executing across all of these fronts requires exceptional leadership. I want to highlight Benjamin Lyon, who has integrated fully into his role at Archer as President of Aircraft OEM. Benjamin is a long-time pilot who spent decades at Apple, shaping some of the most complex hardware programs they ever built, then served as CTO at Aptiv, one of the world's leading industrial technology companies. He is exactly the kind of operator you want driving a program towards commercialization, and his impact on our engineering, manufacturing and certification velocity is tangible. Tom Muniz continues to support the Midnight program, but has now taken a leadership role in developing our hybrid aircraft. Together, Benjamin and Tom represent exactly the caliber of leadership the opportunity requires.

We ended Q4 with approximately $2 billion in liquidity. While this is a strong position, I try to be ruthless about cutting anything that does not earn its place. My job is to drive execution, fly aircraft, deploy them in cities, complete certification, scale manufacturing and deliver to the customers who are waiting. Thank you to our team, our partners, the government agencies and our shareholders that all play a part in our success. Deep tech is extremely challenging, and you give us the ability to pursue it. I do not take your support for granted, and we will work every day to continue to earn it.

With that, I'll hand it over to Priya.

Thanks, Adam. On today's call, I'm not going to walk through all the detailed financial results as those are set out in our earnings release. Instead, I'll briefly discuss the key highlights, our liquidity position, capital allocation priorities and overall financial discipline. First, with respect to liquidity, as Adam highlighted, we closed the quarter with a very strong balance sheet and total liquidity of approximately $2 billion, which is the highest watermark in Archer's history. Our financial strength allows us to think and act beyond a single program.

With respect to our priorities for deploying capital, it is very straightforward. In the near term, commercializing Midnight remains our #1 priority. This includes progressing certification activities, scaling manufacturing and advancing market launch efforts. Beyond the Midnight platform, as we position Archer as a category leader, our next investment priority is in adjacent opportunities such as the hybrid aircraft program and our software platform. These efforts meaningfully expand our long-term optionality and total addressable market.

Our focused capital allocation carries through to day-to-day execution, with Q4 spending tightly aligned to the guidance we outlined in the last earnings call. We are moving steadily towards industrialization and market entry. That naturally requires increased but disciplined spend. For Q1, we estimate our adjusted EBITDA loss to be in the range of $160 million to $180 million. The step-up in investment is deliberate and is a direct reflection of the meaningful progress we are planning for the year. We will continue to provide transparency on spend trajectory and liquidity as we continue to execute against our key priorities.

And with that, I will turn it back over to Adam.

Thanks, Priya. I want to first start by addressing some of the retail questions. And the first question is, how is the pathway for Archer to be the main air taxi service for the Summer 2028 Olympics? Well, the Summer 2028 Olympics is the most important commercialization milestone for Archer, because it represents an unslippable date for us, and it's driving the regulators and it's really driving us towards making decisions and ultimately making progress. But it's not just certification that has to be ready for the launch, it really is all about the infrastructure, the supply chain, the technical progress, all just converging at the same time. And just last quarter, you saw us invest in the Hawthorne Airport, and our team is on the ground every day there working through initial flight operations, pilot training. And so this is a very important event for the administration. And so we are coordinating at the highest levels to make sure that this goes off smoothly.

And with that, I'll turn it back to the operator to open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank.

I want to start off on eIPP. Can you give us a sense of what the next milestones are and the sequencing of events that need to happen before you start to fly the aircraft?

Sure. Thanks, Edison. So just to take a quick step back on the eIPP program, we view this really as a big moment for the industry. I'd like to call it our Waymo moment. If you think about like the first time you saw a Waymo, it felt like science fiction to you, but now the goal is to have 0.5 million people in the biggest cities in the country start to see these aircraft as part of your everyday commute just like they started to see Waymo every day. And that's what I think the eIPP has the power to do for air taxis. So seeing new aircraft flying over major cities will be exciting at first, but we do need to get people comfortable with them and ultimately accept them as an everyday outcome. And that is how we're going to drive consumer acceptance across the industry and in turn, regulatory approval. And so all that is on track, and Archer is on track to participate in that event.

For the eIPP, we've had a lot of inbound interest from the municipalities. And then ultimately, we've submitted the applications, and there's roughly a dozen or so municipalities that we partner with, including Southern California, Texas, and Florida. And now we are looking forward to the DOT announcing the finalist later this month. And then once the finalists are announced, we'll begin working directly with the selected localities to establish the initial operational plans, and then we'll focus on public flights as soon as the second half of the year. So it's really back to the DOT's hands at this point. We're waiting for them on next steps.

Understood. And then in terms of the piloted vertical for transition, I think in the letter, you mentioned kind of the next few months are the test campaign. I guess what is the, I guess, broader plan for the number of aircraft for the levels of flying that you will do for the rest of the year?

Edison, this is Tom. Well, just maybe to take a step back, as we mentioned earlier, we're now in the piloted VTOL and transition part of our flight test, and that's all kind of in support of and on track for the eIPP work that Adam mentioned earlier on the call. And just to kind of remind everybody, this comes on the back of all the VTOL flying we've done on Midnight without a pilot on board over the last several years and the extensive CTOL campaign that we did last year. So we believe we're in a strong position with the testing that we've done.

We also are really glad we invested time in that detailed CTOL campaign, as having the ability to do both those conventional takeoffs and landings and vertical takeoffs and landings, we think is a huge advantage for the product and a big differentiator, obviously, for the business case, safety case, things we've talked about. So our goal is, with this aircraft and the others that are coming online, to efficiently get through the transition testing in support of eIPP, but then we'll get right into TIA activity, all of this with the goal of being certified for the Olympics.

Understood. And if I could just sneak one in on the -- I think you mentioned the first one to get 100% on the MOC. Can you just maybe walk us through maybe the last couple of kind of percentage points? It seems like the industry in general has struggled a little bit to get to those last pieces. What do you think held that up? And why were you able to get through that?

Yes. So it's a good question. So I would say it's definitely fair to say the last few percent were the hardest to close. But I think the fact that we've, from the very beginning, taken really best practice approaches or conventional approaches to topics like lightning strike, gust loads, occupant protection, those sort of things, that are all enabled by us having a larger heavier aircraft meant we were able to get through those topics with the FAA. And we did that instead of by sort of pushing back, we were able to just accept sort of the, again, the best practice approach. So I think that's what enabled us to get through it.

The next question comes from Savi Syth with Raymond James.

Can I ask -- I'm sure it really depends on all the activity that you plan on doing this year. But just curious at a high level, maybe where that EBITDA can step up as you go through the year? And maybe any kind of commentary on CapEx expectations for 2026.

Savi, thanks for the question. It's Priya. So you know that we don't give annual or multiyear guidance, but I'll walk you through the flavors of where spending is going towards. So at the core of which, we're investing in 3 focused areas. The first is, as you can expect, the supply chain readiness and manufacturing capacity, and that's to ensure that we can aggressively ramp up Midnight production and deploy it. Second, as we've talked about, in development of our dual-use hybrid aircraft, as we believe the opportunity is now to win contracts from the U.S. and its allies as they pursue this new vertical lift form factor. And third, of course, is our development of AI autonomy software platform.

So while all these 3 result in spending being elevated in 2025, we think there are a lot of near-term opportunities to win awards on the defense side that could offset some of the spending or early revenues on the software side and the air taxi side as part of our Launch Edition program. So the goal really long term here is to have a diversified set of opportunities that can allow us to get to meaningful long-term sustainable revenue. And as and how we progress through the quarters, we'll keep providing our quarterly guidance. But hopefully, that gives you again a framework to think about where are we deploying capital.

That's helpful, Priya. And then just on the GCAA side, could you explain a little bit more about what the key features are of a restricted flight approach? Like what is and isn't included in that versus kind of a full certification?

Sure. Savi, this is Adam. So our progress in UAE is obviously continuing. And given the kind of current geopolitical situation, we're just mindful of it and how fast to push and how to support our partners best over there. And obviously, safety for our people is going to be important, safety for our partners over there is going to be really important. But with that as a backdrop, we aligned with the GCAA on a pathway for commercialization. And we chose the Restricted Type Certificate really because it was more of a recognized alternative than some of the other choices such as like a type qualification. And it just really gives you broader operational flexibility and a scalable foundation to bring Midnight to market in the Middle East. But we really have to kind of wait and see how all that plays out here. And I think there's more details to come on that.

The next question comes from Andres Sheppard with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Congratulations on the quarter and all the great progress. Adam, I wanted to maybe circle back to eIPP for a minute. Obviously, with the projects now in the application stage, I'm just curious, like how are you thinking about those projects? Like what would you call a success? And particularly the California project, is that maybe where most of the attention is focused on? Or just kind of how are you thinking about winning those projects? And what would you characterize as a successful eIPP entry?

Thanks, Andres. I think the eIPP kind of win will largely be an industry win where we have lots of aircraft flying around in multiple cities and getting the general public comfortable with what we're doing. So I think that's really the #1 takeaway that can come from this. There are a lot of very interesting cities and states that have applied. And so I'm hopeful California and Texas and Florida ultimately get picked. But of course, we have to wait and see what happens. Any one city or location is not going to necessarily determine a success or failure of this. So we have lots of options here that can get picked.

Of course, we are hopeful that the Huntington Beach location does get picked given our plan to ramp operations ahead of the Olympics. But there are lots of great opportunities across many other cities that we think will also be great opportunities as well. So I would say showcasing the aircraft, showing what they can do, having multiple operators doing this, getting the general public comfortable with this and ultimately, getting everybody comfortable with this industry just as they have gotten comfortable with Waymo in their cities.

Got it. That's super helpful. I appreciate all that detail. And maybe just as a quick follow-up. I wanted to touch on -- so I see that you recently conducted a piloted VTOL flight on the new aircraft. And apologies if I missed this earlier, but can you maybe just walk us through your flight plans for this year and kind of how you expect to ramp up those flight hours throughout this year and again, ahead of eIPP and UAE?

Andres, it's Tom. So yes, we're super excited that we're now in that piloted VTOL phase. So what you expect to see over the coming weeks and months is just additional flying working out towards full piloted transition. Obviously, after that, then we get into TIA and on with certification, but also in support of the Olympics.

And maybe this is a good chance for Benjamin to comment here. There were a lot of lessons that we've learned in flight test, and I think it would be good for Benjamin to comment on some of those.

Thanks, Adam. One of the learnings we got from the CTOL campaign was that it was actually the software update cycle that paced our progress. And that's because for our first piloted campaign, we wanted to stick with a well-understood path. So we used traditional aerospace methods. And we learned along the way that about half the time taken was due to manual steps that could actually be easily automated using best software practices from Silicon Valley.

So as part of preparing for the VTOL campaign, we actually made updates to our software infrastructure. Like one such example is we now automatically deploy software updates to the Midnight aircraft. And as you can imagine, the team is very proud of having reduced multi-month long cycles and often just a few days, while maintaining the highest standards of safety.

Congrats again on the recent success.

The next question comes from Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright.

So Adam, just can you provide any color on how many aircraft will you have available for the certification and testing and then for the eIPP program?

Sure. I'll give you a flavor of that, Amit. Thanks for the question. So we're in the late stages of building that initial fleet of Midnight aircraft that we've talked about, and we're going to deploy those in '26 and '27 for our flight testing, our TIA activities and then also as part of our eIPP and the international launch program. And so the focus of those aircraft is really to get us through the piloted VTOL transition testing and then ultimately to demonstrate air taxi ops under the eIPP and launch programs. And then, of course, we need to use that to get to TIA and then ultimately type certification.

But in parallel, we're also really stepping up our manufacturing and supply chain capacity to put it in a position to allow us to aggressively ramp aircraft builds as we get into '27 and '28 as we're ready for the commercial ops in Los Angeles for the Olympics and beyond.

Understood. That's where I was going next, Adam. So from a manufacturing perspective, what else needs to be sort of put in place for you guys to be ready to sort of meet the time lines you just talked about? And any color on how much CapEx is going towards that effort?

Yes, it's a good question. And so as we go through the certification process, we are really focused on making sure we have the right aircraft that's designed for a great consumer experience, very, very safe and that can carry the appropriate amount of payload, but can also be mass manufactured. And I talked a little bit about that in the shareholder letter. It's very challenging balancing the performance, the certification side of it, as well as manufacturing ramp.

So the good news is we've already stood up Georgia, the Covington plant. We've invested pretty heavily in CapEx, pretty heavily in a lot of the NRC and tooling. And so while our spend has been elevated here, I think we are in a pretty good position here to actually ramp once we get through the certification program.

Next question comes from Austin Moeller with Canaccord.

So just my first question here, does the 100% means of compliance completion on the FAA side, does that mean that you're essentially close to or through critical design review, and we shouldn't expect any more aircraft changes? I know that you had changed the landing gear last year.

Austin, this is Tom. I mean the reality is, I can't say we won't make any further design changes until we get through all the cert testing. And the reality is there's pros and cons there. It's actually an opportunity for us to make improvements where we have time and bandwidth in the program. But like that being said, we're really comfortable with the architecture of the aircraft, and we don't see any technology issues today. One thing I can also say is, the approach to design for certification from the very beginning, like I mentioned, it's meant we have a larger and heavier aircraft than some of our competitors. It's really positioned us well. And so Adam kind of touched on this earlier. The challenge here is making sure that the design has the right performance, the right cert path and the manufacturing path to actually launch the product, and we're really comfortable with where those are coming together.

Okay. And if we just think about the Iran operation and the first use by the Pentagon of one-way attack drones, should we think about a Midnight rotorcraft drone as potentially competing on future phases of like the drone dominance program? Or do you think it would be more in line with like a collaborative combat aircraft-type program, specifically set aside for rotorcraft where they're looking for something credible?

Yes. I think the conflicts have really reinforced what's always been true, Austin, which is that air dominance is just the decisive factor and it's key to military superiority. And so what we're seeing now, what you're asking about is really the beginning of a generational shift in how nations are thinking about aerial warfare. And that shift, we think, will play out over a multi-decade period of time.

But I think one thing is clear is that simply hybridizing an air taxi to get some additional range or payload, it may get you some short-term win, but it's divergent from what the administration really and what Americas allies want and what they're demanding. And so that's why we partnered with Anduril to build an autonomous hybrid VTOL aircraft with dual use capabilities for both civil and defense applications. But on the military side, we think the demand is going to be for a loyal wingman, and that's for armed reconnaissance attack helicopters. And so due to the sensitive nature of it, though, I can't share much more details at this point. But our hope is that we can show the aircraft this year, which will translate into some really key wins. And to really help accelerate our progress there, we opened up a new hub in Bristol, U.K., where we've already hired 20-plus seasoned engineers.

The next question comes from David Zazula with Barclays.

Adam, in your first question response, you said that the Olympic 2028 date was driving the regulators. Maybe if you could unpack that statement a little bit. What do you mean? Do you mean resource allocation? What was kind of behind that statement?

Sure. Back in 2022, the FAA was the one that put out the goal of being able to fly eVTOL aircraft in mass in one city at the LA '28 Olympic Games. They called it Innovate 2028. So it really wasn't an FAA program kind of concept to begin with. Since then, you've seen this administration be heavily leaned into the Olympics, wanting to show all the great things America has done, the reindustrialization of America, America's leadership in aviation. And so it's become a big, I think, selling point for the Olympics in general. And so it really has been, one, I think, an exciting thing for everybody to rally behind and people to be proud in America that we're leading in aviation, and also an important point for the administration to make sure that we get this done.

But what it did was create an unslippable date. And so it's a date that everybody knows things have to be done by. And so in this industry, it's tricky, right? We've had some companies that have been around for a long time, and they keep putting out dates and us, too. And the challenge is how do you get anybody to sort of stick to these dates. The way to do that is to align everybody to some unslippable date. And I think the Olympics has done that. It's really just forced everybody to get moving to make sure that all these challenging things that we have to get done are getting done. So hopefully, that gives you a perspective, but I think a lot of it has to do with the culture and really the excitement that is around the games.

Helpful. And then you got asked a little bit about deployment earlier. Maybe specifically for what you have in production right now, can you just give us the breakdown of what you expect to be kind of UAE-based versus what U.S. based on the testing plan for this year?

Sure. I think it's a little bit difficult for us to predict too much stuff in the UAE right now, just sort of given the ongoing conflict. Our goal is to keep getting through some of the testing and the certification progress over there, as well as the certification process testing and eIPP over in the U.S. So I think we'll have to wait and see kind of how that plays out to determine the volumes that we're going to put it in each of the different locations. So I would say let's wait and see how that turns out.

The next question comes from Chris Pierce with Needham.

Just one quick one on eIPP and then one on design. I guess if we think about the applications that you put out there, is CTOL involved? Or should we only expect you guys to see VTOL flights? And is there a possibility we could see VTOL flights up, down, even though we don't have full transition at that time, and that's enough to help sort of move the industry forward. I just kind of want to make sure be on the right page of what we might be looking for later in this year.

Chris, we do expect to be through the full flight envelope at that point. And so I would expect us to certainly see VTOL full transition flights. But because the aircraft was designed to do both VTOL and CTOL, we have the capability to do both. I think that's what's unique about the aircraft. And so there's an opportunity to do both.

Okay. And then the letter talks about the benefits of 4-bladed design. And I know you had a 2-bladed design prior. Is it just that you didn't know what you didn't know? And I guess, you talked about software before, like is there some sort of 4-bladed design give you increased confidence in transition flight? Or is that the wrong way to think about it and those aren't that correlated?

I think it goes back to just the broader philosophy of trying to balance performance certification and manufacturability. And so that is what is -- well, that's where all the work of the industry is going into right now. And I think it's very doable to build an aircraft that can fly really far or fly really high or fly really fast. But once you try to certify that, a lot of the case falls apart because the FAA is extremely rigorous in terms of the standards that they make you have.

And so what we do is we look at different trades. And so all 3 are possible and can be done. You can use a 2-bladed propeller, a 3-bladed propeller, or a 4-blade propeller. You can even probably use a 5-blade propeller. They just all come with different trades. And so what we mentioned in the letter was, a 2-bladed propeller had more of a weight penalty on the trade versus a 4-bladed propeller had more of a drag penalty. So one gives you more range, one gives you more payload. We optimize around payload, which is why we chose the 4-bladed propeller. And we just use that as an example to help show there are literally thousands of trades that go on like that throughout these programs.

And so some could be design trades, where there are industrial designs for like better looks where it can look, but it might picture performance. Some might be payload, some might be range, some might be speed. So those are just trying to give you a flavor for how we think about design here. But any of them are possible, we went with the 4-bladed option because we thought it optimized for what we needed to make sure we can build a proper business case around.

There are currently no more questions at this time. So I'll pass it back over to the team for closing remarks.

Well, thank you very much for attending the call. We certainly have a lot of work ahead of us, but I could not be more excited about where we are headed. Every day, our team shows up with the same urgency that we had on day 1, and that is not changing. I do not take your support for granted. We will keep earning it every day. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.

Good afternoon. Thank you for attending today's Archer Aviation Company Third Quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. My name is Victoria, and I'll be your moderator today. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to pass the conference over to our host, Katie Kiewel, Head of IR. Katie, please proceed.

Welcome to Archer's Q3 2025 earnings. This is Kate Kiewel, Archer's Head of Investor Relations. Today, we will be making forward-looking statements that are based on assumptions as of today and we don't undertake any obligation to update them as a result of 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 these risks and uncertainties, review the risk factors in our SEC filings.

We will also be discussing both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures today. A reconciliation of those measures is included in our shareholder letter and earnings release from today.

Now I'll turn it over to Adam. Adam?

Thanks, Kate. Last quarter, I spoke about the growing support our sector is receiving from the highest levels of the U.S. government and how the Olympics mandate has become a global stage for us to showcase air taxis as we work to commercialize and drive global scale. This quarter, we made meaningful progress on every front worldwide from L.A. to Abu Dhabi to Seoul.

With multiple White House executive orders now establishing a presidential imperative to begin air taxi deployments in America as early as next year, the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program has enabled Archer to shift decisively from vision to execution, scaling commercial air taxi operations across the UAE, America and in select other cities globally.

We're especially focused on winning Los Angeles because if we can prove electric air taxis work in one of the world's most congested, complex and highly regulated cities, I believe we can subsequently scale the product across the U.S. and the world.

Today, I'll start by sharing a strategic development that gives us a unique ability to launch and scale in L.A., a one-of-a-kind opportunity to acquire control of Hawthorne Airport, one of L.A.'s most strategically located airfields and use it as our anchor hub for air taxis ahead of the LA28 Olympic Games and beyond as well as a testbed for our AI technologies under development.

After that, I'll discuss key recent highlights from across the company, including breakthroughs in technology and certification, momentum in global partnerships and the maturation of Archer Defense.

We announced earlier today that we have signed definitive agreements to acquire control of Hawthorne Airport, a rare asset located less than 3 miles from LAX and the closest airport to Downtown L.A., The Forum, Intuit Dome and SoFi Stadium, a site of the 2028 Olympic opening ceremony.

The team and I are actually holding today's call from Hawthorne this afternoon. Hawthorne is an 80-acre airport with an approximate 5,000-foot runway capable of supporting some of the largest aircraft used in private aviation, such as a Gulfstream G650 and benefits from 24/7 operating authority and has the capacity to handle significantly more movements than it does today.

The site features hangar space, office and terminal space and significant expansion opportunities with the ability to more than double the existing hangar footprint. It is a profitable enterprise with a long-term master lease in place through 2055.

Establishing Hawthorne as a key pillar of the Archer network in L.A. gives us a structural advantage, a generational opportunity to control a key airport and build the first purpose-built eVTOL hub at the center of a world-class aviation corridor. But Hawthorne is more than an airport. It's a landmark of American aerospace history.

The city built this airfield in the 1920s to attract Jack Northrop to Hawthorne. Northrop went on to create some of the most innovative aircraft of the 20th century here, including the flying wing and the T-38 Talon pushing the boundaries of flight.

During World War II, this airfield became a symbol of American innovation and resilience. Thousands of workers, including the women who inspired Rosie the Riveter, powered the nation's aerospace transformation. Hawthorne's motto at the time said it all, more jobs than people.

The same tarmac that once launched Northrop's breakthroughs later became home to SpaceX's L.A. operations and served as a proving ground for the Boeing Company's first test tunnel. Archer plans to now carry that legacy forward, ushering in the next chapter of advanced aviation right here in the heart of Los Angeles.

Today, Hawthorne Airport is already a profitable enterprise. For Archer, it will become even more, the blueprint for a new class of urban aviation hubs around the world. We envision Hawthorne as L.A.'s Grand Central Station for air taxis, the centerpiece of our Southern California network where passengers will one day seamlessly fly above L.A. congestion on predictable 5- to 15-minute routes between key destinations, including Hollywood, Downtown and Orange County.

It will also serve as Archer's innovation testbed for next-generation aviation technologies, including AI-driven air traffic control and operations management, seamless passenger identification and security and more.

Alongside this acquisition, we're announcing that we've raised $650 million of new equity capital, reinforcing Archer's sector-leading balance sheet with over $2 billion in liquidity.

To make this vision real, we continue to focus on scaling manufacturing to support both certification and early commercial deployments. Our near-term goals remain to ramp production up to 50 aircraft per year across our roughly 700,000 square feet of manufacturing and test facilities across California and Georgia.

As I discussed last quarter, we're assembling our initial fleet of Midnight aircraft. These aircraft will move directly into testing or early commercial use. We're now nearing completion of the piloted CTOL flight regime, validating operational performance across distance, speed, time and altitude.

Our test pilots have expanded both speed and duration profiles to reflect real-world commercial missions. Recent exciting milestones include 55 miles of range, over 30 minutes of flight time and flying at altitudes up to 10,000 feet at speeds exceeding 150 miles per hour.

The consistency between simulator and the real-world performance continues to validate our engineering approach and reinforces our readiness. Tom will share more shortly, but I'm proud to say that this quarter, Midnight took center stage at urban flight demonstrations around the world. At the California International Air Show, tens of thousands watched and barely heard Midnight fly.

In the UAE, we initiated commercial deployment with our Launch Edition partner, Abu Dhabi Aviation, one of the region's leading operators. This quarter, we expanded our flight test program with our first international flight in the heart of Abu Dhabi against the backdrop of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, one of the nation's most iconic landmarks.

We've since continued to progress our flight testing as we look to validate the aircraft's performance in the region's extreme heat and humidity and advance regulatory approvals with the GCAA towards passenger carrying operations. Excitingly, we've now begun receiving initial payments for these commercial operations under our Launch Edition program.

Momentum has been particularly strong in Asia-Pacific, where we recently solidified relationships with the national airline carriers of Japan and Korea. A few weeks ago in Seoul, we announced a partnership with Korean Air, which selected Archer as its exclusive air taxi partner in the country following a rigorous evaluation process with plans to purchase up to 100 Midnight aircraft.

As Korean Air moves towards completing its acquisition of Asiana, it will become the nation's largest airline and we're proud to partner in shaping Korea's adoption of next-generation VTOL technology.

In Japan, our consortium with Japan Airlines, Sumitomo and Soracle continues to make meaningful progress. Earlier this quarter, Osaka officially selected Japan Airlines and Sumitomo's joint venture, Soracle, using Archer's Midnight aircraft as its air mobility partner. That makes Archer the first U.S. eVTOL manufacturer positioned to play a central role in establishing commercial air taxis in Osaka.

And just yesterday, Tokyo followed suit, selecting our consortium led by Japan Airlines as 1 of 2 groups that will lead eVTOL commercialization. I recently hosted Japan's Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism at our headquarters, a milestone that reflects Japan's commitment to leading in advanced air mobility and its confidence in Archer as a key partner in that effort.

These advancements across the Middle East and Asia position Archer at the center of the 2 most advanced aviation regions outside the U.S. You can expect to see us continue to mature our operational plans with the world's top governments and airlines.

Our international growth continues to attract increasing interest from defense opportunities worldwide, including our ongoing collaboration with Anduril. Last quarter, I shared details of 2 strategic acquisitions that advanced our defense platform, key technology from Overair, a Karem Aircraft spin-off and composite manufacturing capabilities at a facility in Southern California.

These advancements position Archer at the intersection of America's commercial, defense and regulatory momentum, building the foundation for the next era of flight.

Sitting here today, watching aircraft take off and land as I deliver this update couldn't be more energizing. The era of advanced aviation has arrived, not as a distant vision, but as a tangible reality. At Archer, we are not waiting for the future. We are building it. The time to seize this transformative opportunity is now. Over to Tom.

Thanks, Adam. From day 1, our focus has been consistent, finding the most efficient path to making urban air mobility a reality. We have been disciplined in our engineering approach and deliberate in the decisions around aircraft design, manufacturing readiness, certification strategy and flight test operations. That approach continues to cement us as one of the leaders in this sector.

Let's start with flight testing. Over the past few months, our Midnight program has consistently delivered strong results. We are now routinely flying longer, faster and higher as we expand the aircraft's operational envelope.

Recent flights have exceeded 55 miles, more than 30 minutes of flight time, altitudes up to our 10,000-foot service ceiling and speeds in excess of 150 miles per hour. These missions are providing valuable certification data and importantly, they closely mirror the majority of mission profiles we expect in early urban deployment environments.

This quarter, we were thrilled to fly as part of the California International Air Show at our home airport in Salinas, where tens of thousands of spectators saw Midnight fly. The consistent feedback we got at the event was how remarkably quiet our aircraft is.

It really is a special experience to see the aircraft fly by at well over 100 miles per hour and barely be audible above the ambient noise. It was also a special moment for our team, many of which got to bring their families to see the aircraft fly.

The exciting news is that we are nearing completion of Midnight's piloted CTOL test campaign and the consistency we are seeing across repeated mission profiles continues to solidify our confidence in our path to certifying Midnight, both in the UAE and the U.S.

Our next flight test phase with Midnight will be piloted VTOL, including full transition flights with our type certification intent 4-blade aft propellers. Unlike the CTOL envelope that we are now close to completing testing on, the VTOL and transition flight regimes are not new for Midnight, as we have previously completed an extensive flight test campaign with Midnight without a pilot on board.

As always, our focus remains the same: disciplined execution, safety and readiness for commercial operations. The momentum continues to build and the team continues to deliver.

As Adam mentioned, we are continuing to build our initial fleet of piloted Midnight aircraft across our facilities in Silicon Valley and Georgia. The next piloted Midnight aircraft is just wrapping up manufacturing and will move into ground testing shortly and flight testing as soon as it's ready.

This aircraft is equipped with the 4-blade aft propellers that are part of our type cert design and will be used for piloted VTOL and transition flight testing.

We continue to build out the capabilities needed to support a rate of 50 aircraft per year across nearly 0.75 million square feet of our manufacturing and test facilities. Our golden manufacturing line in Silicon Valley remains the foundation of our manufacturing ramp.

As a reminder, this is where our engineering and manufacturing teams refine build processes, tooling and quality controls to ensure repeatability and efficiency.

The lessons and tools established on that line are feeding into our high-volume production ramp. Across all our locations, we remain focused on building a production system that is reliable, scalable and ready for certification.

The progress we are making in parallel on manufacturing and flight testing gives us high confidence in our ability to transition Midnight from development into commercial service smoothly and with the discipline this industry requires.

On the certification front, we have obviously all been impacted by the government shutdown and are hopeful that this will be resolved soon.

On the positive side, part of the FAA has continued working our program despite the shutdown and we have continued with certification efforts in several areas, including continued [ soy ] audits as well as continued work with FAA policy team to close the remaining industry-wide policy topics related to flight test.

Finally, I want to touch on our progress on the defense side. Over the past quarter, we've focused heavily on integrating the technologies, capabilities and teams we acquired from Overair and mission-critical composites. Bringing that talent and technology into our program is key to accelerating our development cycle.

We now have in-house composite structures manufacturing capability, giving us expanded rapid prototyping capacity, which is key for the new aircraft we are developing. We also continued maturing our hybrid electric VTOL aircraft program.

While the specifics remain confidential, our work here is centered on delivering a clean sheet next-generation aircraft designed to incorporate the best of Archer and Overair's technology, meeting the needs of operators who face demanding and complex missions.

Momentum across the defense platform remains strong and we are encouraged by the deep engagement from allied countries worldwide. We look forward to sharing additional updates as and when we can.

Also, this quarter, we completed our acquisition of Lilium's patent portfolio. This was one of the most significant technology portfolios in electric aviation, particularly in ducted fan propulsion, high-voltage systems and advanced flight controls.

Integrating this IP strengthens our long-term leadership position and expands our design space for future hybrid and electric platforms. It also positions us well against emerging opportunities unlocked by the MOSAIC rule, which enables a more flexible path to field innovative aircraft across both light sport and regional mobility categories.

We view this as a strategic advantage for both our defense road map and potential future commercial variants.

And now I'll turn it over to Priya to talk about the financials for the quarter.

Thanks, Tom. With our team continuing to deliver significant advancements across the key priorities you and Adam have discussed, our core focus from a financial perspective is ensuring we are operating from a position of strength. The key to that is maintaining a strong balance sheet.

We closed Q3 '25 with $1.64 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments and today, announced an additional equity raise of $650 million. As Adam and I have discussed previously, our goal is always to be opportunistic with our fundraising activity and that's exactly what occurred here.

As we considered options to finance the Hawthorne transaction, we received substantial inbound interest that led us to do the offering announced today, which had a very strong outcome with the round being well oversubscribed. We view our ability to raise capital as a core strategic advantage that helps power our ability to seize on key opportunities.

We often hear from government, commercial and other strategic partners that liquidity is a key driver to their decisions of who to partner with. They understand the capital-intensive nature of our industry and want to work with partners who will be around for decades to come. Some examples of this include LA28's decision to select Archer and us winning the Lilium IP bid process over our competitors.

With our total liquidity now over $2 billion, we intend to continue to use this as a tool to win future strategic opportunities across the business.

But it's not good enough just to have a strong balance sheet. We must remain focused on ensuring every capital allocation decision directly supports long-term value creation for our shareholders.

As we've consistently emphasized, we take a very disciplined approach to how we invest that capital. Our Q3 spending reflects our continued investment in our key priority areas: aircraft and AI technology development, certification, manufacturing ramp and commercial operations infrastructure to support all our planned line of business in civil and defense, both domestically and abroad.

Our continued emphasis on execution is what has led us to land our financial results within our guided range and this quarter was no different.

Our net loss for Q3 '25 was $130 million. This was a $76 million reduction from Q2 '25, primarily due to the noncash impact of warrant revaluation. Our GAAP operating expenses for Q3 '25 were $175 million and stayed essentially flat quarter-over-quarter, as increased people-related costs were more than offset by the timing of material and supply-related spend.

Our GAAP operating expenses for the quarter included approximately $53 million of noncash stock-based compensation-related expenses, which reflects the cost associated with stock issued to our employees, non-employees and vendors.

Our adjusted EBITDA for Q3 was a loss of $116 million, landing within our guidance range of $110 million to $130 million. Our Q3 adjusted EBITDA loss represents an approximately $3 million decrease from the previous quarter due to the reasons we have discussed earlier.

With regards to cash burn, our cash used in operations and in purchase of property, equipment and intangibles for Q3 '25 was $126 million, which was essentially flat quarter-over-quarter.

For Q3, our cash used in purchase of property and equipment was $20 million, generally in line with the guidance I provided during our last call and represents a slight decrease of $4 million over the previous quarter, which included our strategic acquisitions of composite manufacturing assets and over our patent portfolio.

Looking ahead for the upcoming quarter, we estimate our adjusted EBITDA loss to be between $110 million to $140 million. We expect our core capital investments to increase in Q4 as we continue to build aircraft and expand investments in our manufacturing capabilities. These estimates do not include the costs associated with the Lilium and Hawthorne acquisitions.

As we announced today, we closed the Lilium acquisition for approximately $21 million earlier in Q4 and we expect the initial closing of the Hawthorne acquisition to occur by year-end, which will entail us funding the $126 million purchase price in cash.

What's clear is that now is the time to ensure we solidify our position as a market leader across electric air taxis, the future of vertical lift for defense and cargo and the AI-based technologies that will be used for decades to come. This is how we can deliver enduring outsized value to shareholders.

With that, I'll turn it back over to Adam for Q&A.

Great. Adam, the line is open.

Thank you, operator. We're going to open the call up to Q&A. First, we'll start with the analyst community and then we will move into the retail folks at the end. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank.

I want to ask about the big news on the airport. What kind of advantages do you think you will gain by taking ownership of it? And does this signal kind of some intention on what you might do from a software standpoint on air traffic control on autonomy?

So this was a very unique opportunity. Airports don't really change hands very often, sometimes not at all. If you look back over the past 5 years, there are only a handful of assets that have traded in the entire U.S. So opportunities like this are, I think, very rare.

Now you know our big strategy has been focused around Los Angeles, especially with the Olympics coming up. And so as we've been building out the infrastructure, Hawthorne was a real opportunity to not only just be a major hub, but also to be a point where we can go test, roll out, do all of our [indiscernible], all of our MRO at. And so our vision is to create this Grand Central like opportunity for the Hawthorne Airport.

We looked at it as you can go out and buy a hangar. We would have had to pay somewhere between $50 million to $100 million to buy a large hangar. And so the opportunity to actually get control of the airport plus the FBO, plus all the different growth opportunities was something that we couldn't pass up.

But I think most unique is the opportunity to actually go roll out our software in an airport that's in the middle of a large city. So the Hawthorne Airport operates in Class D airspace, not in the Class B airspace, where big LAX planes are operating.

There is an FAA contracted tower here. And so it gives us a really unique opportunity to really roll this stuff out. It's more than just looking at it from a revenue or EBITDA perspective. It is structurally advantageous for us to have this right in the middle of L.A.

It also happens to be less than 3 miles from both LAX and SoFi Stadium. It also happens to be located all in the different Elon Musk company territories like the Boeing Company. The Boring Company has tunnels that run underneath the airport. And so lots of interesting creative opportunity potential in the future.

Understood. Understood. And then I know you mentioned that it's already quite profitable. Any way to kind of mention the contribution financially from them going forward?

The revenue has the opportunity to be in the tens of millions and it is EBITDA positive. But we don't really think about it like that because there's some decisions that we have to think about.

So one is do we sell hangars? Do we build new hangars? Do we lease new hangars? Or do we consume them ourselves? And so there's a bunch of decisions that have to get made in terms of how we will utilize the airport, but we look at it mostly from a strategic standpoint.

I think if we wanted to, we could carve out the airport and make money, but that's certainly not the goal. The goal is really to take it as a strategic asset and use it to have a structural advantage in the industry.

Got you. And just on the raise, I know you're using some of it to -- for the deal, but it seems like the deal is fairly small in size. So you actually raised quite a bit more. Any insight as to, I guess, what that -- what the extra was for?

Yes. It was opportunistic. We weren't looking to go out there and raise capital. There was a very large reverse inquiry from very high-quality investors. So that was, I think, unique for this period of time.

I'm guessing a lot of that came off the back of the beta IPO because there's a lot of interest in the industry and I view that as just a very positive signal. So I think that was one thing.

The strategic asset was also a really unique thing that came up as well to go do that. So the viewpoint was we have been looking at both the civil and the defense side of the business.

As the civil side of the business starts to approach getting close to market and the defense side of the business starting to ramp up, we thought it would be prudent to add a little bit of extra cushion to the balance sheet.

And then finally, from an offense perspective, we have found that the capital has been a real weapon in terms of going out and being able to do things that we might not have been able to do. For example, the Lilium portfolio.

We were actually the lowest bid when it came to the different bids that were out there, but there was a lot of confidence in our ability to close and we ended up winning that because there have been previously some issues that the bankruptcy group had been through before.

Also going to customers like the big defense partners, when we show up with a large balance sheet, they take us a lot more seriously because the programs that we're looking at are so large, they look at us and say, if we're going to go get you guys involved in a many tens of billions of dollar sized program that's going to last for, they call them generational programs, you need to go deliver against that.

And so it puts us in a position of strength to do that. So while this was opportunistic, I think we are done raising capital for a while for now.

Our next question comes from the line of Andres Sheppard with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Andres here. Congrats on the quarter. Adam, I was wondering if you could maybe help us flush out your latest vision for commercialization in the UAE and through your Launch Edition. Just wondering if you can maybe remind us timing or expectations there? Are you looking to sell aircraft in the region? Just a little more color on your vision there for commercialization.

So we kicked off our Launch Edition program in the UAE this summer and we delivered an aircraft and began test flights in Abu Dhabi and we did that in partnership with our partner out there, Abu Dhabi Aviation.

And as a reminder, each of the Launch Edition programs carry a multiyear commercial value in the tens of millions of dollars to Archer. And so we've already started receiving initial cash payments in the 7-figure range tied to operational milestones.

And then beginning in 2026, we expect to recognize payments as revenue under the accounting treatment for the program takes place. And then just this week, we saw the Director General of the UAE's National Aviation Regulator reaffirm publicly that they remain on track for certification as early as Q3 '26.

So that would enable our partner, Abu Dhabi Aviation to begin commercial passenger service in the country once that takes place.

But as a reminder, we sell aircraft. As we sell aircraft, we start to recognize revenue and collect cash. So we have the ability to do that really all over the world, as you've seen with our Launch Edition partners.

So right now what we're doing is balancing the volume of aircraft we're building against testing in the U.S., the eIPP program and the Launch Edition customers. So there's certainly lots of opportunities to do all 3.

Got it. That's super helpful. I appreciate that color. And revenues next year, that's exciting. Maybe as a follow-up, I was wondering if you could -- either you or Tom can maybe expand a little bit further on the defense side and maybe on the hybrid propulsion.

What kind of opportunities there are you able to share with us that you might be pursuing, whether it's with Anduril or other partners there? Just another maybe update on the defense side.

Sure. So we are deep in the process of product development with Anduril and we've been working closely with the customer on building for specific missions. What's become very clear as we've gone through this process is that you cannot just take a hybrid powertrain and put it onto an existing eVTOL platform. The defense industry is not interested in that as a product.

There are specific missions that need to be filled. And so we're building a platform that is reusing as many of our systems, subsystems, manufacturing processes as possible. And if we're selected for that program, I think it will change the game for vertical lift warfare.

And so when we have something to show, we will -- we'll show everybody. But if you look at the size of past rotorcraft programs, they are absolutely massive and they last for decades.

So we continue to be very excited, engaged in that. We continue to be very positive that good opportunities will come. And so that's largely where the defense opportunity, we think, sits.

Our next question comes from the line of Savi Syth with Raymond James.

Adam, I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about the kind of the eIPP program. Just curious what the thinking or the strategy is behind it for the DOT and how you think it's going to work.

Sure. So there's been a lot of speculation about the eIPP and it really is still forming. But the purpose of the eIPP is not really about generating revenue. It's actually about introducing aircraft into urban environments and gaining the trust of the flying public, gaining the trust of municipalities and regulators.

And so the program will roll out conservatively, simple point-to-point routes in good weather, VFR conditions. And the goal is really to prove the safety and capability of the aircraft.

We all know the type certification process is sort of an all or nothing type process. And while I understand the purpose of that, I believe the way that autonomous cars or Waymos have been rolled out makes actually a lot of sense.

You start in a small area, you gain the trust of the public and then you start to expand. And I think by having a process like this, it will release the certification pressure valve and it should accelerate the path towards certification and commercialization.

That's helpful. And if I can just follow up briefly on the -- I think in the 8-K release, it was kind of called out that $171 million for Hawthorne. It seems like the purchase price is $126 million.

I'm kind of curious what the spend -- the near-term spend you see at Hawthorne and kind of what that incremental spend there is and just kind of how you think about spend over the next kind of year or 2?

Sure. So there is the core price, which is the $126 million for the airport, there are development rights and then there's the FBO and that adds up to the $171 million. There's decisions that we can make in terms of how much to spend, but there's not some like big giant number that we're going to go deploy into the -- that's expected for us to go deploy into the airport in the near term.

And so we'll look at that in terms of the value that can be created, the operations that we need to scale L.A. and scale into the Olympics. But those are still decisions to be made, but I would not expect some giant dollar number.

I also would not expect us to go try to replicate this all over the country or over the world. These opportunities don't even really exist. This is like an end of one asset. And so it is pretty unique from that standpoint.

Our next question comes from the line of Bill Peterson with JPMorgan.

This is Mahima on for Bill. I was hoping to follow up a little bit on certification. Would you be able to share your latest expectations around when you expect to begin TIA testing and when you also expect to be testing Midnight with FAA pilots on board for credit?

This is Tom. I'll answer that. So we're actually getting pretty close to starting our first TIA campaign with the FAA and that could happen as soon as the end of this year. Just to kind of level set everybody, as I said in the past, the TIA process, at least for us, will be broken into many phases on the order of, say, 10 different TIAs, each one targeting compliance for a very specific system or aspect of the aircraft. So the first one of those, again, we plan to start around the end of the year.

And the way you could think about the evolution here is as we continue to deliver or finish manufacturing of these aircraft, each one will be built with systems and aspects that conform in order to support further TIA testing, ultimately building up to a final fully FAA-conformed aircraft doing kind of the final F&R function reliability testing for the aircraft.

I think one thing that's important to know is that right now, as we said before, we still do have a couple of policy items open with the FAA. And so us or anybody in the industry can't do that final TIA for the purposes of flight performance until a couple of those items are resolved.

And we're still optimistic that that will happen very shortly. Otherwise, progress is looking really good.

Awesome. And then as you kind of ramp up your manufacturing capacity here, I think you mentioned up to 50 aircrafts in the coming months. Do you think that that's sufficient to support all the demand that you see in the next year between the test aircraft, the eIPP defense and then some of your international Launch Edition programs?

This is Adam. The demand far exceeds what we can build. And so we're really in the phase where we kind of broke this out into chunks. We said we built that first chunk of, call it, single digit aircrafts and then we're looking at that next chunk, which is in the 50-aircraft range.

And so we're looking at from the standpoint of making sure we can have enough aircraft to support the different opportunities we have coming, whether that's the Launch Edition programs or looking ahead and supporting the Olympics and really trying to think about where the near-term opportunities will be.

But if we theoretically had hundreds of airplanes, I think we could deploy them, sell them, put them out there. But I also think we are learning how to build. And so there's different chunks that we're going through as we scale that up.

And we're also, of course, finishing up and getting through the certification process in the U.S. and then, of course, internationally as well.

So it's a balance amongst all of those, but I think it really starts with there's a high-level demand for the product and then it's us being able to deliver against that from a manufacturing and then ultimately certification.

Our next question comes from the line of Austin Moeller with Canaccord.

So I just wanted to ask about the Lilium asset acquisition. Is Lilium silicon-dominant anode battery or the ducted fan technology more important to you? And when might this be incorporated into one of your aircraft platforms?

So we've been following Lilium closely for several years and we have a lot of respect for the engineering ambition that Daniel and his team brought to the sector. And they built very impressive technology with world-class European talent and they invested $1.5 billion behind it.

And so our consolidation of the innovation by winning that bid for us was, I think, actually quite positive and that there were a number of foundational eVTOL technologies around ducted fan, propeller systems, high-voltage systems and many others that we were able to accumulate patents on.

So it adds around 300 patents -- patent assets to the Archer portfolio, bringing our portfolio to more than 1,000 patent assets globally. But much of the technology that was being developed there, we believe was still a little bit ahead of its time, but it holds meaningful potential as the industry matures.

And so the depth of the ducted fan IP, we think, is quite compelling. We're laser-focused on Midnight, but that technology one day could support new architectures, including some of the smaller format or light sport concepts, as the regulatory pathways from MOSAIC unlocks innovation in those adjacent segments.

So we view this as a very important long-term enabler and just another example of us consolidating the technology foundation of the industry.

Okay. And just on the purchase of the Hawthorne Airport, I think when we were in your office, we discussed the importance of real estate at airports for eVTOL. So are you planning to transfer any of the space at those airports either to FBOs or airline customers to be able to use? Or how are you thinking about using that valuable real estate?

So the airport is quite large. It's 80 acres. And so we have partners in the industry like Beta, who come and electrify airports. And there's groups out there that we partner with that I think could also find value in the airport. So there's lots of ways to think about it.

One is we can build a centralized hub that everybody can use. And so it could be a way to help bring the industry together and create a main point of interest for us all to use to really help unlock a city like Los Angeles. And so I think that's one really attractive way to look at it.

Another one is as the industry matures, it gives us a real central hub for all the maintenance, for all the [indiscernible] of aircraft in the middle of the city. So when you think about like launching operations, you don't really want to fly your aircraft in 30 minutes, 45 minutes from somewhere significantly outside the city.

So this was just super unique from that standpoint that we could use that. But I think it's an opportunity to really help the industry propel forward in a complicated city.

And then this other side of it is it gives us an incredible opportunity to go out and test out all the software, the AI capabilities that we've been building from air traffic management to all the other capabilities we mentioned.

The industry is going to need to evolve to support the large advanced air mobility expectations. And so that's not just on manufacturing. That also has to come from the software side as well. And so we plan to use this airport as a testbed to deploy that, partnering with the regulators to really showcase a lot of these technologies.

Our next question comes from the line of Amit Dayal with H.C. Wainwright.

Congrats on all the progress. I apologize if you already discussed this, but any color on the burn rate for 2026?

Yes. Amit, this is Priya. So when we think about 2026, the biggest expense will continue to be our Midnight program. So next year, we'll be producing and deploying additional aircraft.

As we've talked about earlier, we'll balance where we deploy these aircraft between UAE, eIPP, flight test and other opportunities. Some of those opportunities will be generating cash and they'll net these expenses we've talked about.

But when we think about beyond this core program, we expect to invest in our defense and software development as well. So first, for the defense program, we do plan to leverage a large portion of the existing resources we have as well as the test infrastructure.

But we do expect to invest incrementally to support the program, which again locks a lot of the value and big defense contracts that Adam has talked about.

For software, we'll be, again, investing to build the product, which could generate revenues in the future. Timing of that is still to be determined and we'll talk about it closer to the time when we get there.

And then, of course, finally, we talked about the Hawthorne acquisition today. We'll be integrating that into our business next year, which is, again, generating revenues and will be generating margins. So we'll be incorporating that into our financial results for next year.

So again, hopefully, that gives you again a framework as and how we think about next year and we'll get into official guidance when we get to that point in time next quarter. So hopefully, that helps.

That's helpful. And then just a clarification on the number of aircrafts you may need to get through certification and commitments in UAE, et cetera. Like are we targeting around 10 aircrafts over the next 6 to 9 months?

Yes. So there's 6 aircraft in production now with parts on order for many more than that. But as Priya mentioned, we're sort of trying to judge or be opportunistic with where to use those aircrafts. So certainly, there's a planned portion of those at least that will be used for FAA certification testing.

But others, we want to send to eIPP locations in order to support that testing as well as our activities in the UAE. So until all those things start to materialize, we have optionality for kind of how many to send to which location.

Understood. And just last question, Adam. This is an interesting acquisition of this airport, strategic asset for you guys. Do you think this sort of triggers a little bit of a land grab in terms of other sort of players or even direct participants trying to get involved in taking ownership of such assets, given they are limited in number and some of these could be in critical locations that could support expansion efforts in the long term? Like how should we think about some of these types of assets that are adjacent to the story that now kind of comes to the fore after this deal that you've undertaken?

I think that some of the competitors would be interested in doing that. I just don't think there are opportunities to do that. These assets just change hands so rarely and sometimes never because they're owned by municipalities.

So they're very unique in nature when they come up. Again, we plan to use this asset as a hub for Los Angeles and to really build around it and we welcome the competitors to actually use it and to kind of unify more as an industry to together help operationalize an incredible city of Los Angeles, which can have a huge opportunity and there will be plenty of room for us all to help change the urban landscape here.

Our next question comes from the line of David Zazula with Barclays.

I guess, first, on the Launch Edition aircraft, I know you're -- there's not that much you can say, but is there -- are there any modifications that you anticipate to be able to use the currently flying Launch Edition aircraft as the conforming aircraft forecasting with [indiscernible]?

With regards to the certification in UAE, which was with the GCAA, as I've talked about in past calls, we've got a very detailed kind of step-by-step plan for delivering data to them to support the kind of phased integration of the aircraft and ultimately getting to passenger service in that country.

A lot of that is leveraging testing we've already done or already doing with the FAA. And from there, it kind of tees into the discussion we had earlier around TIA.

And so I would just go back to our framework there of each aircraft we're building is really targeted to generate specific data to provide to regulators, both in the UAE and the U.S. in order to show compliance.

So again, that kind of merged with trying to, let's say, balance where we put our priorities as far as allocating aircrafts. We've got essentially like a lot of past, but they all lead to really exciting things for next year.

Very helpful. And then Tom, could you maybe give a little more color on any impact that the shutdown has had on the certification time line and the ability to progress towards the confirming aircraft in the U.S.?

Yes, absolutely. I touched on it briefly earlier on the call, but we are still engaging with the FAA despite the shutdown. So on our program, some resources continue to work, which is fantastic.

Others are unfortunately not available. So hopefully, that situation gets resolved soon. But in several areas, we're sort of unconstrained just continuing to execute all the areas that have approved cert plans and we're just in execution mode.

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Pierce with Needham.

Apologies if this came up earlier, but with the acquisition of Hawthorne, given its much different geographic footprint versus Salinas, do you have kind of carte blanche to fly test flights in that area? Or do you need to talk to the regulators further, given the higher population density or just broadly kind of going into basically a city?

So you can break this down in a couple of different ways. So this will not be used as our core test flight facility. We will still be using Salinas as our core test flights facility.

Once you get kind of certain hours maturity on the aircraft, you can start to fly and get permissions to fly in and around urban environments.

eIPP, as an example, is a way to help accelerate some of these paths. And so the eIPP is expected to have -- the cities get announced in the first quarter of next year. It's expected there'll be 5 and then for flights to take place starting in the summer.

And so we're hopeful that Hawthorne gets picked and that's one of the places that we can operate out of. It would make sense. It's right in the middle of all these operations that we're working on. But we'll see what happens.

And nonetheless, we'll be still using the airport as building up the different assets here as we build into just commercializing and ultimately into the Olympics.

And did you feel like you needed to make this acquisition because maybe partners within the L.A. area weren't moving as fast as you like? Or is that kind of just some of the conjecture? Or I just kind of want to get a sense of what drove you to pull the trigger beyond just these assets don't come up for sale very often.

It's just very unique, Chris. It's not -- it's something like if we didn't do it now, it may never come up ever again or at least in my lifetime for us to go do something like that. And so need, I think the answer is no. Super opportunistic, I think the answer is definitely.

And so in the aviation world, I think this is viewed as like a absolutely treasured asset right in the middle of the city. And this airport is 3 miles from LAX.

So if you think about all the complexities that are at LAX, which we will not have to deal with. And so if you can connect this airport to LAX, it could end up being a massive terminal that is used to shuttle not just even hundreds of people, but potentially even thousands of people to the airport because you're out of a complex airspace where there's a jet landing at LAX every 90 seconds.

So just the opportunities here are quite incredible and it was just something that we couldn't pass up. And so it was viewed as something that was sort of a once-in-a-company kind of opportunity.

That will conclude our analyst question-and-answer session. I would now like to pass the call back over to Adam.

Thanks. So I'm going to go -- I know we're running -- I'm still going to go through at least one of the retail questions that was just asked. And so the question was, with the recent deal with Korean Air, are you pursuing further eVTOL deals and agreements with other major Asian aviation conglomerates?

So yes, I am personally spending a lot of time in the second half of this year abroad and I've been with customers, senior government leaders and particularly in the Middle East and in Asia and the reception has been very strong and incredibly validating. And so our model is certainly resonating.

The progress that we're making in the UAE, both in flight testing and on the regulatory development has driven a lot of inbound interest across the region and especially at countries that are looking to fast track commercial service with proven partners.

So we're seeing that same momentum in Asia and in Europe, as governments are looking to integrate urban air mobility into the national transportation strategies. So you've seen it in Korea and Japan, where we were selected as the air taxi partners for both of the national flag carriers.

And I think there's going to be a lot more coming. A lot of these conversations will converge at the Dubai Air Show. And so we look forward to sharing a lot more when the time is right.

So with that, I think I will wrap up the call. So I want to thank everybody for joining. This is a very meaningful time for our industry and we are building thoughtfully and steadily towards our vision. I want to thank the team, the partners for all their work and commitment and we look forward to sharing more progress next quarter. Thanks.

That concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the rest of your day.