China’s Volant Signs eVTOL Supply Deal With Indonesia’s WhiteSky

China’s Volant Aerotech has signed a memorandum of agreement with Indonesian charter operator WhiteSky Group covering the supply of VE25-100 eVTOL air taxis. The deal puts a Chinese electric air-taxi platform on a path toward commercial operations in Southeast Asia — one of the regions where short-hop air mobility could matter most, given archipelago geography and congested ground transport.

Volant has retired its X1 technology demonstrator, first flown in 2023, and fully transitioned flight testing to its first development aircraft, the VE25 AC101. Moving the test program onto the development airframe is the standard industry signal that a company is done proving the concept and is now proving the product.

The agreement lands in a busy week for eVTOL commercialization: Archer wrapped its Bay Area demo tour and moved its Midnight prototype to Los Angeles, and Vertical Aerospace signed certification-oriented supplier deals for its Valo aircraft. Taken together, the industry is shifting from “can it fly?” to “who will buy it and where?” — and Asia is emerging as a key battleground for that second question.

Commercial timelines remain the honest caveat. MOUs are not firm orders, and certification in each operating country is its own marathon. But the geographic spread of these deals — California, the UK, China, Indonesia, the UAE — shows the air-taxi race is no longer a single-country story.