Archer Completes Historic Electric Air Taxi Flights Over San Francisco Bay

On October 19, 2026, Archer Aviation announced that its all-electric Midnight air taxi completed several days of piloted flights across the San Francisco Bay Area as part of the company’s “No Roads” flight tour. The flights included multiple trips around the San Francisco Bay, with takeoffs and landings at Oakland International Airport.

Beginning in Salinas, Midnight’s multi-city journey took it through progressively larger cities and increasingly complex airspace, with stops in Hollister, San Martin, San Jose, Mountain View, and Hayward before reaching Oakland, where it completed multiple piloted flights over the bay.

The Northern California flights were designed to demonstrate Midnight’s ability to operate in the complex urban airspace surrounding the Bay Area’s three international airports: San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose. Together, they represent one of the busiest flight corridors in the country.

Beyond demonstrating airspace integration, the flights allowed Bay Area communities to experience the potential benefits of electric air taxis, including low noise, zero operating emissions, and the ability to bypass congested highways. Trips that take an hour or more by car could potentially be completed in 10 to 20 minutes.

Midnight flew from Oakland International Airport to San Francisco’s Marina District in approximately 10 minutes, a journey that can routinely take more than an hour by car in traffic. During the three-day, multi-city journey, the aircraft reached top speeds of 131 mph, flew more than 200 miles across the region, and visited seven cities.

“The Bay Area is the innovation center of the world, but even here Americans lose multiple weeks a year sitting in traffic on bridges and highways,” said Adam Goldstein, Archer’s founder and CEO. “Flying Midnight across multiple cities in Northern California shows we can connect communities with no roads, no traffic, and no emissions in minutes instead of hours. That’s the future we’re working towards bringing to the Bay Area, Los Angeles and cities across the country.”

Building on close coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and state and local partners, the Northern California flights have opened the door for Midnight to continue demonstrating its readiness to integrate with commercial air traffic in major cities. Archer plans to fly in Los Angeles next as it prepares to operate under the U.S. eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP).

The Bay Area flights mark another milestone in Archer’s “No Roads” tour. On September 22, Midnight completed several piloted flights for tens of thousands of attendees at the 2026 California International Airshow. Before flying for the hometown crowd, the aircraft began its tour with multiple city-to-city round-trip journeys from Salinas to Monterey and Hollister.

Archer aims to transform urban transportation with Midnight, replacing 60- to 90-minute commutes with quiet, all-electric flights that significantly reduce travel times compared with ground transportation. The aircraft is designed specifically for urban air mobility, with the ability to conduct rapid back-to-back flights with zero operating emissions.