Joby and BETA Open Florida's Air Taxi Trials With a St. Petersburg-to-Tampa Flight

On Friday, October 30, 2026, two electric aircraft took off from Albert Whitted Airport in downtown St. Petersburg and landed at Tampa International Airport about 20 minutes later. One was a Joby S4 (registration N545JX, a conforming prototype); the other was BETA Technologies' first production-conforming ALIA CX300 (N916LF). The flights opened Florida's part of the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), the White House-backed program the US Department of Transportation announced in March 2026.

More flights were planned for the first week of November, including a landing at a new vertiport near Orlando International's Terminal C and train station on November 2, and Kennedy Space Center flights on November 7-8 during UP.Summit. Joby says the Orlando vertiport procedures were developed over two years of simulation with the FAA, NASA, the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, and local air traffic controllers. BETA says its CX300s have already completed 14 eIPP flights covering nearly 700 nautical miles around Tampa and Orlando.

What these flights are not: a bookable service. Joby's announcement does not mention tickets, and no eVTOL in Florida — or anywhere in the US — holds FAA type certification today. Joby describes itself as being in the final stages of certification, with five aircraft flying in that final stage and 12 more in production, and reports its Q3 results on November 4. Separately, a federal judge narrowed Joby's trade-secret claims against Archer on September 29 while dismissing Archer's counterclaims outright — a reminder that the air taxi race is being fought in court as well as in the air.