Available in the presentation section of our IR website for a limited time. Please note that our discussion today may include statements regarding future events and performance, as well as statements of belief, expectation, and intent. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For a more detailed discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC on February 27th, 2024. The forward-looking statements included in this call are made only as of the date of this call, and the company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them. Our discussion today will be led by Bonny Simi, President of Operations, and Eric Allison, Chief Product Officer.
Later, we'll be joined for Q&A by Matt Field, Chief Financial Officer, and Didier Papadopoulos, President of Aircraft OEM. With all of that said, I'll now turn the call over to Bonny.
Thank you, Teresa. Before joining Joby, I held a range of operational and strategic roles at JetBlue Airways, working across flight operations, system operations, people, airports, and customer support. I'm also a qualified airline transport pilot, having flown aircraft from Embraer E190s and Airbus A320s to Boeing 777s at both United and JetBlue over the last 30 years. My relationship with Joby began in 2017 when I led the JetBlue Ventures investment in the company, and in 2020, I joined Joby full-time. As the President of Operations, my mission is to ensure that we have everything in place to run a successful air taxi operation as soon as next year. My team and I work incredibly closely with Eric and his team, who are developing our service and the software that will support it. We're working directly together to design operations and software to make sure they fit seamlessly together and deliver the service our customers will expect.
Thanks, Bonny, and good afternoon, everyone. I joined Joby from Uber, where I built out the Elevate team, championed Uber's $125 million strategic investment in Joby, and laid out a vision for aerial mobility that continues to be embraced by the entire sector. The Elevate team built on the decade of experience Uber had in enabling on-demand mobility to develop an air taxi product. We built a wide range of software tools to support high-tempo helicopter operations, and we actually ran these in New York City through the Uber app, giving us incredibly valuable and unique insight into how to run effective aerial ride-sharing operations. As Chief Product Officer at Joby, I've been working with many members of the original Elevate team, plus new team members, to refine and mature these tools.
Prior to Uber, I was CEO of Zee Aero, a company developing autonomous air taxis, known today as Wisk Aero, and I hold a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford.
Today's session is designed to familiarize you with the rigors that go into preparing for the safe commercial operation of an air taxi. We've designed, built, and flown a remarkable aircraft, and we regularly talk about the incredible progress we're making on certifying our aircraft and scaling manufacturing. But without the accompanying operating certificates, software, training, safety, and maintenance programs, it's not possible to operate an air taxi commercially. Over the course of the next 30 minutes or so, we're going to introduce you to what we're referring to as a pre-flight checklist. In other words, all the things any operator would require to be in place before starting commercial operations. Our go-to-market strategy has three core pillars. First, operating in the U.S. domestic market alongside our partners, Delta and Uber.
Second, working with the Department of Defense and other partners where we may sell the aircraft directly to support their operations. And third, working in overseas markets like Dubai, where we recently announced a six-year exclusive deal to operate air taxis. Our discussion today will be framed through the language and processes of the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, which defines operations in the U.S. domestic market. The FAA is known as the world's gold standard aviation regulator, and much of the work that we will do with the FAA will transfer directly to the international markets where we also are targeting because those regulators look to the FAA to set the benchmark. In many cases, this is codified through bilateral agreements between the FAA and those regulators.
This also means that we can package our work on pilot training, maintenance, safety, software, and other systems, and provide those as a service in geographies where we either choose or are required to operate through a joint venture with a local operator, or where we choose to sell the aircraft directly. This will enable us to ensure a safe and efficient customer experience while opening up additional business opportunities. But before I get to the pre-flight checklist, Eric is going to dig into what makes air taxi operations unique and different from anything that's existed before.
Thanks, Bonny. When we think about aerial ride-sharing, we're thinking about something very different from today's air travel. This app mockup demonstrates how we're planning to deliver truly multimodal and seamless customer journeys. Imagine an Uber dropping you off at the Joby Vertiport. Our aircraft arrives there just in time to fly you to the airport where you catch your Delta flight. Or perhaps you know you're already late for a meeting across town and you haven't got time to drive. Or maybe you just want to get home to see your kids before they go to sleep. Sometimes our customers might book well in advance, but over time we expect the majority of them to treat flying with Joby like ordering an Uber today, as a relatively last-minute thought, and we need the capabilities to offer that kind of on-demand multimodal service.
In 2019, my team at Elevate built and ran Uber Copter, which was the first ever multimodal air taxi service in New York City. It was an incredibly valuable learning experience, but it also taught us that the sort of software we would require to deliver high-tempo on-demand services just didn't exist, even with the most sophisticated helicopter operators. To deliver efficient, even magical customer experiences which connect seamlessly with the services of our partners like Uber and Delta, we realized we would need to think differently about the backbone of the operation and build the software that keeps it all running from the ground up. And that's why we built ElevateOS .
It builds on years of experience from Uber Elevate and running Part 135 operations at Joby, and it delivers tools like a rider app, a flight planning tool, a pilot app, and a matching engine, all of which work seamlessly together to maximize the efficiency of the service and deliver that true time-saving value to our customers. To put it simply, you can't develop an aircraft and just drop it into one of today's existing airline or helicopter operations and expect it to be successful. You have to do the hard miles on the software too, which is exactly what we've done. Bonny, back to you.
On the screen now, you'll see our pre-flight checklist. It's a bit like a pilot's checklist before flight. It lists all the major things we'll need on the operational side of the business in order to be ready to take off and transport paying passengers on a Joby aircraft. And you can see that we've already checked off many of these over the last couple of years and are making great progress on the remaining items. You'll also see that many of the items on the list refer to a part or a section of rules issued by the Department of Transportation and the FAA that deals with a specific type of activity. We describe these parts in shorthand using a number because the official title of these rules can be long and complicated.
For example, Part 135 is officially called Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 135, Operating Requirements, Commuter and On-Demand Operation, and Rules Governing Persons on Board Such Aircraft. It's much better just to say Part 135. Now, the North Star for all our operations is safety. There are many acronyms that describe the safety programs relevant to our operations, but the very top of this list is the Part 5 Safety Management Systems, or SMS. You'll also need a Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate issued by the FAA. Next on the list is having someone to fly the aircraft, fully qualified commercial pilots. To achieve that at scale, you'll need to build a structured pilot pipeline. This is most efficiently done through an approved FAA Part 141 training curriculum.
For eVTOL training, you'll also need an FAA-approved training course, including the use of full-motion simulators that are qualified by the FAA under Part 60 in a process that takes many years. Housing this program in a Part 142 training organization gives us the flexibility to sell the training as a service to operators to whom we sell aircraft. Next on our checklist is maintenance, and here's another part. This time, it's Part 145, which is an FAA-issued certification that covers maintenance, repair, and overhaul. There's an operating system. That's a range of software tools that ties all of these functions together and brings our multimodal on-demand service to life. It includes things like flight planning, scheduling, pilot apps, and rider apps, as well as a matching engine, all of which we're building in-house. For many of these, their use also has to be authorized by the FAA.
At Joby, every one of these elements is part of our vertically integrated approach, and I'm pleased to say that I believe we're making industry-leading progress in all of these areas. Now let's look at our checklist in detail and map Joby's progress to date. Up first is the air taxi service. The foundational requirement for operating any type of airline or air taxi operation is an air carrier certificate. An on-demand air taxi service like ours must be operated under Part 135, which is a different certificate from the ones used at large airlines who are regulated under Part 121. Getting a 135 air carrier certificate is a 5-phase regulatory process that involves writing and submitting numerous manuals detailing the processes and procedures your air taxi operation will follow.
When I joined Joby, we very quickly came to the conclusion that we should build our air taxi operation from scratch rather than buying an existing Part 135 operator. Building it yourself allows you to develop procedures specifically relevant to the unique nature of the operation you plan to do, rather than adopting procedures and manuals written by others that would not be relevant and would require extensive rework to be successful. So we completed the five phases, writing more than 1,000 pages of manuals, and received our Part 135 certificate in May of 2022. For two years now, we've been flexing the muscles of our air taxi operations using the aircraft right behind me, a Cirrus SR22, which is an aircraft that can be operated with one pilot and four passengers, just like our Joby aircraft.
We're using this aircraft to test different types of operations and our software integrations. A couple of examples of what we've done with our Part 135 over the last two years include running an internal shuttle service for team members between our sites, bookable via an early version of the rider app that allows for on-demand by-the-seat booking, building and using systems to take payment from external customers, and offering a paid charter service to both team members and non-employee customers. All of these trials have been opportunities to use and continue to improve our software, like the pilot app and our back-end scheduling system, as well as the linkages between these systems. Looking ahead, we'll be able to add any type certified aircraft to our Part 135 certificate by going through an abbreviated approval process.
We'll be able to make progress on the first three of five phases required even before receiving our Joby aircraft type certificate, expediting our path to operations. Alongside the Part 135 certificate, we'll also need to build out a number of other items you'd typically associate with running an airline, including operations centers that manage and monitor the aircraft and customer service centers. Now that you have an airline, you'll also need the next item on our list, pilots to fly the aircraft. From decades of working as both a pilot and an airline executive, I can tell you that the supply of pilots ebbs and flows over the years. But it is critical for an operator to be able to consistently source the pilots needed for day-to-day operations.
According to federal regulations, a pilot flying under a Part 135 air taxi operation must have at least 500 hours of flight time and have training specific to the exact aircraft they will be flying by an approved training program. This means that at a minimum, we must create and receive FAA approval for a training course to fly the Joby aircraft. Let's talk about the development of that training. This course includes training materials and manuals to familiarize pilots with the equipment and operations of the aircraft, the use of flight simulators that are separately qualified under Part 60 to ensure they provide an experience that is fully representative of piloting the real aircraft, solo flights in the aircraft itself, and a series of competency checks that test trainee pilots on their knowledge and piloting skills specific to the Joby aircraft.
Then a final check ride in the simulator, followed by initial operating experience in market prior to carrying passengers. We've been working for several years now on the structure of the course, with over 100 lesson modules in development and testing. At Joby, this aircraft-specific training program will be operated within a Part 142 training program, which allows us to train pilots, whether they'll be flying directly for Joby or for another operator who has purchased the aircraft. Our relationship with the Department of Defense has been a huge help with the development of our training, as we've been able to go through the course with numerous DoD pilots to get feedback on the clarity, quality, and flow of materials. Last year, we had 4 DoD pilots fly the Joby aircraft remotely after completing an initial version of our training course.
In total, 10 pilots have now flown the Joby aircraft through full transition. We've also completed more than 100 flights with a pilot on board the aircraft. With our final FAA-approved course, we expect to be able to train commercial airplane pilots to fly the Joby aircraft within roughly six weeks. This is very similar in content and duration to the type of training an airline pilot receives when they learn a new aircraft. It's the sort of program I've experienced many times in my career. Now, the real long lead item here, though, is the flight simulator. Anyone developing a single-pilot air taxi will need to use high-fidelity immersive flight simulators before pilots can fly the real aircraft in commercial air taxi operations. The regulations allow for training in a Level C full-flight simulator.
These are extremely high-tech, full-motion, six-axis devices that replicate the aerodynamics, systems, controls, and motion of the aircraft. They also give pilots a full field view that very accurately replicates the real environment in real time. This allows for operation of the simulated aircraft in a full range of realistic scenarios through the entirety of its flight envelope, providing a training experience that's as close to flying the real aircraft as you can get without actually being in one. These simulators must be qualified by the FAA according to requirements laid out in Part 60. And to be clear, the development and approval is a multi-year process. We expect to perform hundreds of tests, comparing simulator data to real aircraft data to ensure the simulators will meet FAA requirements and actually simulate our aircraft.
In March of 2022, we announced a partnership with CAE to develop these simulators, and we've had steady engagement with the FAA on the qualification plan, leaving us on track to qualify the Level C simulator prior to commercial operations in the U.S. For our initial commercial operations in Dubai, we'll use a fixed-based version referred to as a Level 7 simulator, which will be delivered by CAE next year. This training course and the simulators to go along with it are table stakes required for us and anybody else to train qualified commercial pilots to fly an eVTOL aircraft. But where are we going to get the pilots? We expect our initial several years of operation will be staffed by pilots with experience in airline or military flying who've decided that they want to live and work in the same region and be home every night.
However, we know that to scale, we will need to develop our own pilot training pipeline. There are two types of training programs for new pilots: Part 61 and Part 141. Part 61 is unstructured, not reviewed or approved by the FAA, and is less efficient than the more rigorous FAA-approved Part 141 programs. Like other training programs we've described, there is a long lead time in building out FAA-approved pilot training programs, and we're well on our way towards initial certification of a Part 141 pilot academy. While this may not be an absolute requirement to launch operations, we're very proud of our work in this area, and we believe it will be very important to scaling our future operations and broadening access to becoming a pilot. Now, coming back to the checklist, we're going to look at how we'll maintain our fleet of aircraft.
Helicopters typically require multiple hours of maintenance and associated downtime for each hour of flight. Reduced maintenance costs and higher aircraft availability are two of the core value propositions of electric air taxis. For Joby to deliver a cost-effective air taxi service that our customers can rely on, our aircraft is designed with these characteristics in mind. We've made design decisions across the aircraft to optimize for reliability and maintainability. For example, choosing direct-drive motors that are considerably simpler to maintain than motors with a gearbox and hundreds of moving parts. Our propulsion motors are also easy to swap and replace, meaning the type of maintenance issue that would take a helicopter out of service for two weeks could be instead completed overnight on a Joby aircraft.
Looking ahead to commercial service, we are uniquely positioned to build out an efficient maintenance, repair, and overhaul, or MRO, operation because of our vertically integrated structure. In flying more than 33,000 miles with full-scale prototypes, our team has learned a tremendous amount of how to keep our aircraft in flight-ready condition most efficiently. Those learnings feed directly into the instructions for continued airworthiness submitted as part of the aircraft's type certificate, as well as the way we are structuring our maintenance operation. To be able to carry out all needed MRO activities and do them at dedicated bases in our target markets, we applied for and received our Part 145 maintenance repair station certificate. This was a multi-year process that involved drafting and submitting hundreds of pages of manuals, just like the Part 135.
We're already using our Part 145 to perform certain inspections on our existing fixed-wing aircraft and our Joby aircraft prototypes, again, exercising mission-critical activities in advance of operations. And just like with the Part 135, we'll be able to add the capabilities to work on our entire Joby aircraft once it's type certified. There are many reasons why we're building out MRO capabilities in-house. First, if we don't build it, it won't exist. We're the only team in the world right now that knows how to maintain our Joby aircraft. Without an MRO, we can't launch operations. Second, quality and safety. We've developed and implemented FAA-compliant quality and safety programs as the foundation of our 145 repair station that meets our high company standards. And by conducting the maintenance ourselves, we can ensure they are properly maintained to our standards. Third, efficiency.
Under Part 135, an air carrier can perform certain maintenance activities, but not necessarily in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. Most repairs and all overhauls cannot be conducted under Part 135. These must be done under Part 145, which is a separate entity from the air operator. With our Part 145 in hand, we can set up MRO bases in market, not only in the U.S., but also globally. We're already in the site planning process to support our Dubai operations. We can also establish component repair sites in market that perform repairs and some overhauls to aircraft equipment separately from our manufacturing facilities. Importantly, this capability, along with the overhauls and parts from our manufacturing division, allows us to offer valuable support services to any operator of our aircraft. Having integrated systems between the OEM, operations, and maintenance organizations also brings added benefits.
We're already developing tools that continuously monitor the health of aircraft systems based on operational flight data. These tools can reduce unscheduled maintenance events through predictive maintenance programs, something that's only possible with integrated systems that allow data to flow from the operations to maintenance in real time. Finally, workforce development. With our Part 145, we're able to build a pipeline of talent by training and certifying maintenance repairmen who become experts in specific maintenance procedures. They then rotate through our Part 145 operation using holistic experience and eventually becoming licensed A&P line mechanics who will work on our aircraft in the field. There are currently no training programs for mechanics on eVTOL aircraft or electric propulsion in general. So we're developing these programs in-house for our mechanics. I'm proud to say that we received a $1 million grant from the FAA to support this program.
Now it's my privilege to hand it over to Eric, who's going to talk about all the work we're doing to develop our own operating system that ties all of these various elements together.
At Joby, we think about our software as needing to be like the central nervous system in our bodies. It needs to deliver real-time communications between all of the various parts of our operation while making sure that they all work coherently together. An operating system for our operations. During my time at Uber, we ran high-tempo air taxi operations in New York City, and we quickly learned that software like this just didn't exist. Even the most sophisticated helicopter operators relied on systems and FAA-approved manuals and procedures designed for a different purpose in a different era.
Connecting to Uber, while seamless on the surface, required a dance of phone calls and emails and even hard copy printouts to stay compliant with approved procedures. In a similar vein, booking a privately chartered aircraft today is remarkably inefficient. It typically requires several rounds of emails or calls just to get a price quote. We knew that to achieve the type of on-demand multi-modal trips we want to deliver, we'd have to do things very differently. So we started to build the tools that would bring that ultra-responsive central nervous system to life, distilling what we were learning at Uber into an ElevateOS , or operating system. In 2021, Joby acquired Uber Elevate and brought on board critical members of the original team.
Since then, we've grown the team and built out the idea of ElevateOS , this time with the added benefit of doing it right alongside the team that's developing our air taxi operations, allowing us to perfect both sides of the equation. The operating system we have developed includes an electronic flight bag for the pilot that allows them to complete their preflight and post-flight checks, informs them about the passengers and the weight and balance of the aircraft, and contains their duty assignments and logbook, both of which will be automatically populated via our flight planning system. There's also an operations core, which manages aircraft and pilot availability, plans routes, maintenance, and landing pad access.
Then there's a mobile-first rider app, which is the passenger interface, allowing people to book and pay for flights and allowing us to integrate with our partners, Uber and Delta in the U.S., and other partners internationally. And finally, there's an intelligent matching engine that sits behind all this and brings it together, connecting a passenger with an aircraft, a landing pad, a pilot, and a route all in the blink of an eye versus the hours or days it takes to organize a charter aircraft today. The really great thing is that ElevateOS brings together a range of world-class capabilities into one system while still allowing us to add best-in-class third-party applications where that makes the most sense. And as we've developed the system, we've learned several important things.
First, and this might sound obvious, but all those pieces have to be able to speak to each other. They have to be built in the same architecture with the same language and the same intent in order for them to be able to deliver the flexibility and the speed we're looking for. That's why we are building an operating system that spans across all of our operations, not just a grab bag of tools. There are many great examples in both the automotive and the airline worlds where new and legacy software tools have failed to work well together, leading to operational chaos. Next, we learned that there are significant benefits when you do build these systems together. One great example of that is maintenance. In a rudimentary form, the system can start to demonstrate intelligence, identifying when an aircraft won't be available due to scheduled maintenance.
But as that system matures and learns about the real-time performance of the aircraft, it can start to predict maintenance requirements, helping to reduce downtime and improve safety. Of course, it's constantly learning about the performance of our aircraft, drawing data from the entire fleet. Finally, we've seen the remarkable value of having our software team work hand in glove with our operations team, co-designing our processes and our software for the very best performance and customer experience, something you just can't do if you're not building both parts yourself. Since Joby's acquisition of Elevate, we've constantly improved, tested, and iterated this software. In fact, some of these tools are already on their third full iteration. With that experience, it's abundantly clear to us that it is just not feasible to pick up an air taxi and drop it into an existing airline operation.
A few years ago, a book came out on the history of Amazon, The Everything Store by Brad Stone. One of the things that struck me was that Amazon was able to launch Amazon Prime and redefine the way we think about buying online precisely because it had built a custom software foundation to manage its operations, allowing Amazon to operate at a speed and scale no legacy system could come close to matching. We'd think about our software in a similar way. Since being awarded that Part 135 certificate more than 2 years ago, we've had the opportunity to gain incredibly valuable experience running the software we've built in a real-life environment. We've successfully operated a true on-demand rider app.
We used our Cirrus aircraft to simulate the Joby rider experience, letting our team members book flights using our rider app, giving them free choice of timing, origin, and destination within the range of the aircraft. We used automation tools to match team members to aircraft and other team members with similar plans to each other. By October of last year, we were using the pilot app, the rider app, and our operations core in tandem with one another and successfully processing payments for our flights, all with our own software, including for external customers booking our Cirrus SR22 for charter flights.
In other words, we were already running software today that is much more efficient than anything you can buy off the shelf for Part 135 operations. We still have plenty to do, but the experience we are gaining is critically important for us and something that really sets Joby apart. As we look ahead, we'll continue to run and iterate our software in an FAA-compliant manner. We look.
Foundation of any air operation. At Joby, we take our commitment to safety incredibly seriously, so seriously that we printed it on everyone's badge. There's a QR code right here for people to make safety reports as they go about their daily work. As a pilot and former airline executive, I'm deeply familiar. We're building today the systems and processes you would expect to see at a mature aviation company. We're grateful to be consulting regularly with Delta's safety team to guide the development of our work.
Key to that is our safety management system, or SMS, a formal top-down and bottom-up organization-wide approach to managing safety risk and assuring the effectiveness of safety risk controls. I'm pleased to say that Joby was the first eVTOL company to have an SMS accepted into the FAA's voluntary program for air operations supporting our Part 135. Additionally, we were the first eVTOL company to announce a commitment to developing an enterprise safety management system, a more holistic approach to managing safety that will cover all operating areas of our company, including not just our commercial air operations, but also our maintenance organization, training, manufacturing, international operations, and the environmental health and safety of our team members.
While much of the work I have just described has been voluntary, in January of this year, the FAA announced that a safety management system will now be required for all Part 135 air operators, having previously been voluntary. Thanks to the work we have already completed for our program, we're perfectly placed to demonstrate compliance with the new FAA Part 5 SMS requirements for 135 operators, giving us a great head start on this incredibly important work. The FAA now also requires an SMS for OEMs, and we're working to. Aviation Safety Action Program, ASAP, and the International Standard for Business Aircraft Operations, IS-BAO, audit. This audit is administered by the International Business Aviation Council and is designed to promote high-quality Part 135 operations that have a safety mindset and culture.
I'm pleased to say that last year, we became the first eVTOL company to be awarded a Stage 1 certification for our Part 135 operation, with work on Stage 2 underway, further reinforcing our safety culture. That brings us to the end of our preflight checklist. We've covered a lot, including our Part 135 operations, pilot training, maintenance, software, and of course, safety. In the process, I hope we've been able to give you a deeper understanding of what it will take to launch successful air taxi operations. I also hope we've been clear on some of the longer lead items required to go to market, such as simulators and our Part 135 operation. Finally, I hope you've been able to see the distinct value that comes from Joby's vertically integrated approach.
We truly believe that the work we are doing and the foundation we have built over many years is sector-leading and puts us in the best possible place to be able to deliver safe and meaningful operations to our customers all around the world. We have always strived to be transparent on our progress, whether that's progress on manufacturing, certification, or today on operations, and we'll continue to keep you updated as we make progress towards our goals and check off more of these boxes, including on topics we haven't covered in detail today, such as infrastructure and charging. I'd like to reiterate my thanks for your time today, and we're now going to open it up for questions. Operator, would you please instruct participants on how to ask questions?
At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, you may type your questions into the Ask a Question field on your screen. One moment, please, while we pull for questions.
Thanks, everyone, for the questions that you've been submitting in the chat. The first question up is from JP Morgan, and the question goes as follows: Is Joby designing its pilot training program around the FAA's proposed SFAR as written, or assuming there may be some changes once the final version is released? Bonny?
Sure. Thank you. What a great question. First, for our wider audience, let me explain what an SFAR is. So the FAA has regulations for 135 operations for airplanes and helicopters, and they've been in existence for quite some time. The SFAR, or Special Federal Aviation Regulation , is going to be published later this year by the FAA and is specifically for powered lift.
It'll include, for example, whether we need to have a type rating to be able to fly the aircraft. Normally, type ratings are required for larger aircraft and turbojets and would not be required for the size of aircraft that we have. So using that as an example, we're designing our pilot training curriculum to adapt to however that training requirement will be, whether or not it needs a type rating or not, because our program is very, very robust and is already set to type rating standards. As I mentioned in the video, we're using simulators for this, which is very typical to how airline pilots learn to fly passenger jets or military pilots learn to fly the jets. And it's a very SIM-based approach.
Wonderful. Thank you. The next question comes from Aviation Week, and the question is also about pilot tools. So this one is, would you please elaborate on what pilot tools are part of ElevateOS and how these tools would be used by pilots?
Absolutely. This is one of—I so enjoy working with Eric's team on the pilot app because I've used pilot apps for years, and they don't all have the things that you need in them. So this one does. And what we currently are using in the pilot app is it tracks pilot currency. For example, takeoffs and landings, which are FAA-required that you need to know if you're current. It also tracks what we call flight time duty time. There's a lot of regulations around whether or not a pilot has had enough rest or not. So this is tracked in the system. It's also integrated with our rider app, so it brings in the weight and balance.
So I know what my passenger manifest is, and it ties right into the weight and balance of the aircraft. So I can do those tools very quickly and easily in those assessments. And then it tracks what we call OOE times, in, out, off, on, automatically. And what that does is it ties right into the flight time duty time, but it also tracks then the aircraft and the aircraft status and maintenance as whether the aircraft is ready to fly.
Terrific. Thank you. There's a question as well from a retail investor asking, "Will you lease this preflight system to other eVTOL companies?"
I'll cover parts of it, and then I'm going to hand it to Eric as well. So as we've mentioned, the preflight system, if you will, which covers a lot of different areas. Some of those will be part of our Joby services package that we would sell, offer as an offering when we sell our aircraft, for example, pilot training. So the simulators are very large, 40 feet tall, $several million, and we have this robust training program. So it's a great place for others to come and train with ours. So we'll sell that as a service. There's also then our safety systems, very robust safety systems, which we will provide as a service. And then Eric, maybe you could cover the software side.
Yeah, we plan to use ElevateOS to support our own air taxi operations, which is really the kind of the design considerations we've put into it initially. But we're also going to make it available to selected partners, as Bonny said, who purchase the aircraft as part of the wider services packages that we'll be putting together around this.
Thank you. There's a couple of questions on here about timing of adding aircraft to our Part 135. So one of the questions comes across as this. Once TC is received, what is the process and timeline to add the Joby aircraft to your Part 135 operating certificate?
Sure. So there is the same process for initially setting up a 135, where there's five phases, as we showed, sending a letter of intent, you begin a formal application, and then the manuals. And the manuals are the long process, but that can be done while you're getting your TC, so prior to the TC. So if you think about an airline, when they add a new airplane, they don't reinvent how they run their airline. They just add the training manuals and a few other specifics. So we will be completing that part of it. And then we move into the performance and then the administrative side where they actually add it to the certificate. So it shortens it because we'll have done a lot of the work prior to type certificate.
Great. Raymond James is als o asking about what that means for the maintenance certificate.
It's very similar on the maintenance side. So there are a few capabilities that you can do. You first get a Part 145 certificate, and then you add capabilities to the list. So we'll be adding the capabilities, for example, for the rest of our Cirrus SR22. Then when the Type Certificate happens for the Joby aircraft, we can add that to it as well. It's very similar. It's just that we have to show the processes and procedures and demonstrate those to the FAA.
Thank you. There is another question here. Maybe Eric, this one's for you. How will ElevateOS work with the Delta app?
So thanks for the question. We're really excited to be working with some best-in-class partners for our technology integration. So when we brought Delta in as an investor several years ago, we talked about the vision of a home-to-seat service. And we are really excited to be working and engaging with their digital teams and with their partnership teams to lay that out. And the foundation for that integration, though, is what we're building with ElevateOS . And so that really is a necessary piece of the puzzle. It's been really great working with their teams in a collaborative way as we've defined out all of these pieces. And look forward to talking about that more in the future.
Thank you. Another question has come in from eVTOL Insights asking, has Joby chosen and/or announced in launch city?
So we were working, again, we have three different ways for a commercial launch. One of them is with our partners, Delta, as Eric mentioned. And we're very focused on New York and L.A. for those markets. There's the Department of Defense. And we currently have an aircraft, of course, at Edwards, and there's more to come going forward. And then we've also announced an exclusive six-year deal for launching in Dubai. And we also have signed an MoU for operations in Abu Dhabi. So those are our key focus at this time.
Thank you.
Just a reminder to the audience, please continue to submit your questions by typing them in the Ask a Question field on your screen. Thank you.
Thanks, Diego. There is a question here I see from Morgan Stanley. We're asking, what is the most challenging aspect that you will still need to develop before entering into service?
So I'll say our checklist highlighted a lot of these. We're very much on our way. I'm very confident we've got the pilots and pilot training, our maintenance, the safety, the software, as we say, infrastructure as well. As we think about our launches, as I've mentioned, we're going to be launching in Dubai. We have a partner there with Skyports. Look for some news about the infrastructure in that market. We work very closely with Delta on our infrastructure in the New York and L.A. markets. Again, looking for some announcements in those areas.
Thank you. There's a follow-up training question from Aviation Week. Your training partner, CAE, has talked about eVTOL OEMs to expect several months from type certification to entry into service to complete all the requirements. How long are you planning for?
So the timing for us, again, there's Part 91, which is air tours, and Part 135. So once we complete the type certificate, our aircraft, the simulator process kicks in. Again, it runs in parallel. And we anticipate it'll be just a few months, but we'll be able to be operating our aircraft prior to that in market surveys as well as through our Part 91 operations, including air tours.
Thank you. I have a question here from an aspiring Joby pilot, by the way, who's asking that you've mentioned initial pilots will come from commercial or military background. How will those pilots be selected? And how are you planning initial launch as you expand that group?
Great. So we actually already have some Joby pilots, right? So we have pilots flying our aircraft now through our flight test team. And as we need pilots, we are posting. We currently have postings in Dubai. And we'll announce a pilot. So there's some required positions there: flight operations manager, safety manager. So we're filling those as pilots. And then we'll add pilots as we scale. I have constantly pilots reaching out. They're very excited. It is kind of a culture within pilots to be part of what we call an initial cadre, to be part of that initial group. So there's a lot of interest in our offerings. And so as soon as we're ready to begin hiring pilots at scale, be looking for those postings.
Awesome. Certainly send those applications in. I have a question here from TechCrunch. This is about the OS. I believe Joby has said it will work with existing rideshare platforms to connect riders to eVTOL services in cities. Will Joby still be using this approach, or will Joby be owner-operator of its own eVTOL services?
Thanks for the question. It's a really great opportunity to highlight our launch partners on the commercial side. Uber and Delta are two of our key commercial partners as part of the deal that brought Uber Elevate into Joby back in 2021. We actually have an agreement with Uber to integrate our technology into the Uber platform in a bidirectional fashion. If you book a trip through the Joby app, Uber will be providing the first and last mile service associated with that. But you'll also be able to book trips on a Joby directly through the Uber app in an integrated fashion. We think this is a really critical piece of being able to get our technology into the hands of consumers as quickly as possible.
Terrific. Thank you. Another question about pilots and training. Will the Part 141 school accommodate pilot applicants with no prior aviation experience, or is it geared only towards those with a rating?
Great question. So we actually have two training programs. One is the one that I've mentioned in more depth, which is the Joby Aircraft Program. And that is a 6-week type rating or type rating equivalent course. Experienced pilots, you need to be an experienced pilot to enter that program, a minimum of 500 hours. So how does a person get those 500 hours? That's through our Part 141 program.
It is for aspiring pilots beginning with their private pilot. So a private pilot, instrument rating, commercial, and then building experience from there. So that is the program that we have. We launched initially with a private pilot ground school. We've had over 1,000 students go through the program, including with some high schools and local educational institutions, as well as with Joby employees. And we've started doing flight training programs through all of the ratings already through our Joby Aviation Academy. This is to build the muscle, if you will, for our 141 application, which we're deeply into at this point.
Terrific. Thank you. There's a follow-up question here from an investor asking, how much development is still left for ElevateOS ? Is it ready to launch today? Eric, you can take that one.
So we're really excited that we've built a foundation that we have been authorized by the FAA to use as part of our air taxi operations. And really, this gives us the opportunity now to continue to build out features that we'll add over time in the context of testing this in our operation, providing useful services for our employees, and testing things out in a real-world situation, as I discussed during the presentation.
Thank you. I have a question from Canaccord Genuity asking, how many trained pilots do you expect you will need to initiate service in a launch market?
So the number of pilots that are required for a market, first, there's the required ones, as I mentioned. You have to have the, we call them post holders, or here in the US, they're called 119s. So these are the required positions: a flight operations manager, safety manager, et cetera. So there's those core. And then it's a ratio of pilots to airplanes. So the more airplanes we put in, the more pilots we'll hire.
Terrific. Thank you. I have a follow-up question here asking, can you advise of expected maintenance periods and required days or each phase of maintenance?
So we're still building out our maintenance program. And we're learning, as we mentioned, we've got 33,000 miles on our prototypes. And every iteration, every new aircraft, we're building out the experience. And so by the time we're ready for launch, we'll have better details around it. But right now, we're still building out those programs and the instructions for continued airworthiness, which is part of our type certificate process.
Great. Thank you. There's a follow-on question here asking, does building out a clean sheet airline operation in-house position Joby to be more efficient and ultimately scale up to compete with others? Or is there another way to handle this?
So there's really two ways to gain an air carrier certificate. Either you build it from scratch, as we have, clean sheet, specific to the operation you choose to operate, or you can purchase one. And then you have to customize that. You have to take their rules, which are different, and then modify them and go through more approval processes through the FAA. By doing ours now, we built our 135 with the vision of operating hundreds of aircraft. It is a very robust program for a Cirrus SR22 135. But again, we built this clean sheet knowing where we're heading with our vision. So that does allow us to be much more efficient when we're ready to start our operations.
Terrific. There's a question as well from Meadow Wood & Company asking about the recent acquisition of Xwing and our plans for autonomy.
Yeah, I love the question because it goes direct to our long-term vision and the value of vertical integration. So autonomy is a part of our long-term technology roadmap. And though right now we're focused on getting our initial type certificate and production certificate, we have made some strategic investments in order to stay at the cutting edge of aviation technology and prepare for the future upgrades for our air taxi. So we plan to launch the service with a fully qualified commercial pilot on board, like Bonny was talking. But with benefiting from that vertical integration across the TC, the PC, and the operation, then we will start introducing some autonomy capabilities as we build out our commercial service.
Terrific. Thanks, Didier. I have a question here from an investor asking, how is AI being used in the software? Are there any implications for that in your business? Eric, do you want to answer that one, please?
Absolutely. Thanks for the question. So I think that we really have a unique perspective on AI because the foundation of AI is really data. That's the most important piece of how you build interesting technology solutions in the future. And as a vertically, a deeply vertically integrated company, we really have a different perspective on this because we vertically integrate down into our supply chain in terms of building many of the components, most of the components that create the aircraft. But we're also, as you just heard today, vertically integrating into the operation as well. So we see data, and we own data, and we control data across the entire spectrum. So we're really excited about what these applications look like in the future.
Thanks, Eric. And one more question here regarding training. Is there a formal training program within Joby for training maintenance technicians? Bonny?
Yeah. So it's interesting. So to work on an aircraft, you need to have an A&P or be supervised by an A&P. And that is an airframe and powerplant licensed mechanic. And currently, the A&P curriculum, if you will, in all of the schools do not have anything about eVTOLs or electric propulsion. So we are developing our own training program for A&P mechanics that we hire to teach them about our aircraft. So it's a classroom-based program to start, and then it's on-the-job training. So just like we have on the pilot side, we're doing that on the maintenance side. And we're partnering with the Department of Defense as well.
Wonderful. Thank you.
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