Helisul Aviation, one of the largest helicopter operators in Latin America, has entered into a partnership with Eve Urban Air Mobility that will focus on creating an ecosystem-wide approach to prepare for urban air mobility operations in Brazil. In addition to collaborating on a suite of products and services, the partnership includes an order for up to 50 eVTOLs with deliveries expected to start in 2026. Launch partner Halo Aviation has ordered a further 200 Eve eVTOLs.

Over the last few years, Eve and Helisul have been collaborating to evaluate how to co-create solutions for urban air mobility, leveraging Brazil's existing air taxi infrastructure, one of the largest in the world, for the use of Eve's eVTOL aircraft.

Helisul commercial director Luis Carlos Munhoz da Rocha says: “This partnership with Eve is cause for great satisfaction to Helisul. Eve is looking far ahead of the market needs, and Helisul shall follow all its steps hand-in-hand. With cities growing bigger and traffic more and more congested, our partnership to build intelligent solutions and practices for urban mobility in the big cities will improve quality of life, reducing air pollution and travel times with door-to-door transportation,”

Eve president and CEO Andre Stein adds: “Disruptive urban air mobility solutions can bring the same type of benefits that aviation has already brought to longer trips literally closer to people, giving urban commuters more options to move around the city. Our partnership with Helisul allows us to disrupt Brazil's already large air taxi infrastructure, and it is well-positioned for the future of flight transportation. Our team will provide comprehensive services, including urban air traffic management solutions, while benefiting from Helisul's unique market position.”

Helisul and Eve plan to begin their partnership working together in a proof of concept operation, using helicopters in order to validate the parameters that will apply to the future eVTOL operations. This partnership aims to develop new services and procedures that, together with communities and other industry stakeholders, can create a safe and scalable operating environment for eVTOL operations to expand, focusing on critical aspects to design for all users, including how to maximise accessibility and inclusiveness in vertiports and eVTOL boarding operations.

Benefitting from a startup mindset and backed by Embraer's more than 50-year history of aircraft manufacturing and certification expertise, Eve is positioning itself as an ecosystem partner by offering a suite of products and services. Eve's human-centred, eVTOL design is simple and intuitive, and continues to reach development milestones, including the first flight of the engineering simulator in July 2020 and proof of concept in October 2020. In addition to the aircraft programme, Eve is harnessing the expertise of both Embraer and Atech, a subsidiary of the Embraer Group, in providing globally recognised air traffic management software to create the solutions that will help safely scale the UAM industry going forward.