Palantir and Surf Air Mobility expand partnership to accelerate SurfOS products

Surf Air Mobility provided a business update on its airline operations, which include Mokulele Airlines in Hawaiʻi and Southern Airways on the U.S. mainland, reporting SurfOS-driven efficiency gains of a 6% reduction in direct operating cost per block hour, a 9% reduction in fuel burn per block hour, a 9% reduction in pilot cost per block hour, and a 15% improvement in labor productivity per block hour year to date in 2026. The company ended the second quarter of 2026 with a controllable completion factor of 98% and on-time arrivals of 88%, and grew Mokulele revenue approximately 7% year over year in that quarter. Surf Air Mobility secured a four-year Essential Air Service contract from the U.S. Department of Transportation to continue service to Lanaʻi, representing $19.4 million in subsidies excluding passenger fare revenue, doubling the term of the prior award and providing contracted revenue through August 2030. The company also completed an electric aircraft demonstration program in Hawaiʻi with BETA Technologies, supported by Hawaiian Airlines, in which BETA's ALIA CTOL aircraft flew 64 demonstration flights across four islands, and it became the first Part 135 passenger operator to join the FAA-sponsored Center for Advanced Aviation Technologies Consortium. For the fourth quarter of 2026 and into 2027, Surf Air Mobility said it will grow profitability as it begins the Expansion Phase of its Transformation Plan, complete digitization of crew scheduling and payroll, dispatch, and maintenance on SurfOS, position Hawaiʻi as the launch market for electric aviation, and refresh the Mokulele and Southern Airways brands.

Surf Air Mobility Inc. announced it has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to serve as a Participating Airspace User in the agency's Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes, and Trajectories program. SMART is one component of the FAA's broader overhaul of air traffic management automation, known as the Brand-New Air Traffic Control System, and is built around two tracks: SMART Schedules, which analyzes airline schedules, weather, airport capacity, and airspace conditions months to days before departure to identify potential conflicts, and SMART Trajectories, which supports day-of coordination between airlines and air traffic control from pre-departure through arrival. Under the agreement, Surf Air Mobility will assign subject matter experts from network planning, flight performance engineering, dispatch, and flight operations to the FAA's SMART Innovation Lab, and will contribute operational data and feedback to help refine SMART's scheduling and trajectory models. The company said its participation draws on its experience operating Southern Airways and Mokulele Airlines and on SurfOS, its software operating system powered by Palantir Technologies, which it is developing for the Part 135 aviation industry. Surf Air Mobility said the participation aligns with its broader strategic initiatives, including becoming a platform for advanced air mobility and its plans to be the first Part 135 operator to commercialize electric passenger flights for scheduled service and On Demand charter.

BETA Technologies has launched all-electric flight operations in North Carolina's eLIFT program under the FAA and U.S. Department of Transportation's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, or eIPP. Since September 17, the company has flown its ALIA CTOL aircraft on missions including a flyover of the Wright Brothers National Memorial and simulated deliveries of essential healthcare cargo to rural medical access points, covering more than 1,300 nautical miles. Working with the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Metro Aviation, ECU Health and WakeMed, BETA designed the campaign to connect regional medical centers with rural and coastal communities, including routes between Raleigh Executive Jetport and Pitt-Greenville Airport. The operations use BETA's Charge Cube at Raleigh Executive Jetport, installed in 2024, with more than 15 additional charging sites in development across North Carolina. BETA is participating in seven of the eight eIPP programs selected nationwide and has already supported operational missions in Virginia, Maryland, Louisiana and Texas.

Elon Musk has applauded Heart Aerospace's first flight of its X1 battery-electric demonstrator, which flew for 27 minutes on roughly $5 of electricity, and said an important next step is making it autonomous. The piloted X1 flew on August 12 from Plattsburgh International Airport in New York under an FAA Special Airworthiness Certificate, climbing to 1,100 feet and delivering more than one megawatt of electric propulsion power. Heart Aerospace calls the X1 the largest battery-electric aircraft ever flown, and founder and CEO Anders Forslund said the test demonstrated electric flight at the scale of a commercial airliner. The X1 supports development of the ES-30, a 30-seat hybrid-electric regional aircraft targeting 200 kilometers of all-electric range and up to 800 kilometers in hybrid operation, with type certification planned for 2031. Heart says the ES-30 could cut aircraft operating costs by more than 40 percent, and the company has attracted a $107 million investment from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, while Air Canada has ordered 30 ES-30 aircraft and invested $5 million in Heart Aerospace. Musk's call for autonomy goes beyond Heart's current roadmap, as the X1 flight was piloted and the ES-30 is presented as a crewed aircraft, and certification remains a hurdle, with the FAA describing a seven-phase process.