Urban Movement Labs announced a new partnership with Overair, an electric vertical takeoff and landing company, to bring urban air mobility to the greater Los Angeles metro area. Overair joins a growing Urban Air Mobility Partnership led by UML. The partnership will focus on community, government, and industry engagement to ensure a collaborative approach to implementing safe, equitable, convenient, and sustainable urban air mobility technology.
Overair will work with UML and the Urban Air Mobility Partnership to explore operational and infrastructure development considerations. Additionally, Overair will help study the noise impacts of eVTOL vehicles and support community engagement efforts to plan workforce and economic development opportunities within the new UAM industry.
Overair aims to position their groundbreaking eVTOL vehicle "Butterfly" as an alternative transportation choice within metropolitan areas. Each Butterfly will carry up to six people (five passengers and a pilot), or 1100 pounds of cargo, and will be able to travel distances of approximately 100 miles and speeds up to 200 mph while being powered by clean all-electric propulsion. Based in Orange County, California, Overair's rapidly growing team plans to initiate commercial operations in 2026.
"Our partnership with Urban Movement Labs is a step forward on our path to future operations. The Los Angeles metro area can benefit greatly from advanced air mobility, given the increased travel times in Southern California on a daily basis. Working together with UML on planning efforts grounded in community engagement, we're on the path to providing reliable, affordable, equitable, and sustainable transportation options to the city of Los Angeles and surrounding areas."
Ben Tigner, CEO, and Co-Founder of Overair
"We are proud to partner with Overair and welcome them to the Urban Air Mobility Partnership. We're excited for opportunities to leverage their current technology to engage and inform the communities of Los Angeles on aspects of future UAM operations," said Sam Morrissey, Executive Director at Urban Movement Labs. "As a local Southern California company, Overair shares with us the values of planning a safe, equitable, and sustainable urban air mobility future, which will allow UML to further advance our mission and the goals of the UAM Partnership."
Overair and UML will begin work immediately to discuss creating infrastructure and progress in the Los Angeles area in conjunction with other companies within the partnership.
About Overair
Overair is positioned to be a global leader in advanced air mobility. Spun out of Karem Aircraft in 2020, the Santa Ana, CA based company announced the design of its vehicle, Butterfly, in 2021. Butterfly is a breakthrough electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. Butterfly's proprietary technologies, derived from the Overair team's decades of aerospace experience, create critical power reserves using today's commercially available battery cells, which translate into advances in safety and a superior experience for passengers and communities. With eVTOL adoption revolutionizing urban mobility, Butterfly is positioned to set the bar on real-world dependability, with best-in-class payload, noise emissions and weather capability. Overair has operating partnerships with companies such as Hanwha Systems and Bristow Group, and the team completed its full-scale propulsion testing in the first quarter of 2022.
About Urban Movement Labs
Urban Movement Labs is a first-of-its-kind mobility-innovation organization that links government, businesses, and community members to innovative technology solutions to help solve transportation challenges in the City of Los Angeles and beyond. UML is committed to a community-first approach and ensuring that mobility innovations help build safe, equitable, and sustainable cities.