Texas's New Electric Air Taxis Are Taking Off - And They're Just The Beginning

Joby Aviation has been working to bring its electric air taxis to Texas, and, in September, the company started flying them around Dallas-Fort Worth. The flights started at Perot Field Fort Worth Alliance Airport on September 10 and went on for about a week. During that time, Joby flew its air taxis into DFW Airport, as well as out to Arlington and along a route to Toyota's North American headquarters in Plano.

None of the flights carried any passengers, though. Instead, Joby says the test flights are designed to give the FAA the real-world data it needs to build safety rules for commercial air taxi service. However, Joby's CEO JoeBen Bevirt says the flights are "just the beginning of what Texas and Joby can build together," and it does seem like the company is planning to stick around in Texas.

Back in August, Joby signed a lease at Alliance Air Trade Center, which is part of Perot Field. The company says it will use the space as a base for its air taxi operations in Dallas-Fort Worth. That was about a month before Tesla launched its self-driving Cybercab in Austin, so there has been a lot going on in Texas when it comes to innovative ways to travel.

The flights Joby made in Dallas-Fort Worth are part of Project Nexus, which is TxDOT's piece of the FAA's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program. The FAA's program is set to run for three years, and Texas isn't the only state involved. TxDOT is working with Oklahoma, Louisiana, and the Choctaw Nation on the project, so the FAA will be able to test air taxis in cities as well as in rural areas.

The long-term goal of Project Nexus is to have air taxis make regional flights between Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and eventually Houston. There's no date specified for when that could happen yet, though. Project Nexus isn't just about passenger flights, either. TxDOT also wants to test medical and cargo flights with these aircraft, and we've already seen a medical flight happen in another part of the FAA's program. In July, BETA Technologies and United Therapeutics flew a genetically modified pig heart between airports in Virginia and Maryland using BETA's electric aircraft, and that flight was actually the first one in the FAA's entire program. Getting an organ where it needs to go is highly impactful.

Joby still needs the FAA to certify its air taxi before it can start flying passengers. The company says it is currently in the fifth and final stage of the FAA's type certification process, but Joby hasn't revealed when people in Texas will be able to actually book a flight.

Getting to an air taxi might also be a problem for some people. The FAA says that early air taxis will use existing helipads where they can, and that they will operate a lot like helicopter services do today. The system will operate very differently from a robotaxi service like Waymo, where the car comes to pick you up. Even if air taxis were to expand the same way that Waymo has been to major U.S. cities like Las Vegas and San Diego, you wouldn't be able to call an air taxi as easily. Instead, you'd have to go to a helipad or landing site to catch your flight.

Air traffic at DFW is another thing that Joby and the FAA will have to deal with, too. DFW had the third-most takeoffs and landings of any airport in the world in 2025. NASA and Joby ran simulations of air taxi flights at DFW and Dallas Love Field back in 2023 to test procedures that could help reduce the workload on air traffic controllers. NASA researcher Ken Freeman said the simulation "validates the idea that we can find a way to safely integrate these vehicles into the airspace at scale." Still, a simulation isn't the same as flying real passengers over Dallas, and Joby hasn't done that yet.