Air taxi companies have mastered a crucial piece of technology: The press release
In a “tongue-in-cheek infographic,” SMG Consulting calculated the flight hours to press release ratio of US air taxi companies.
To follow the electric aircraft industry is to get familiar with the art of the press release.
Companies in the US eVTOL (electric vertical takeoff and landing) market, dominated by Archer Aviation, Joby Aviation, and the newly public Beta Technologies, are not shy about letting their investors know what they’re up to. Press releases covering new partnerships, new acquisitions, new markets, and certification updates are published frequently. One might say very frequently, with companies regularly dropping similar releases covering similar updates on the same day.
Now, we’ve got some numbers behind the flurry of PR.
Boutique consulting firm SMG Consulting tallied the number of press releases and flight hours of the major electric aircraft companies through December to calculate the 2025 “flight hours flown per press release” ratio for Archer, Beta, and Joby.
Per the firm’s data, Beta Technologies leads the pack with 63.5 hours flown per release, while the ratio for prose progenitor Archer stuns at roughly a press release per every 18 minutes flown.
According to SMG, those ratios may be thrown off a bit by aircraft type — Beta also makes an aircraft that takes off and lands via runway. When looking at just eVTOL aircraft (air taxi) flight hours, SMG found that the numbers are a bit closer:
In that breakdown, SMG said that Joby leads with about one press release for every 3.2 flight hours, followed by Beta’s 36 minutes and Archer’s 18 minutes.
