Joby Aviation Flies Air Taxi From JFK to Manhattan, Stock Jumps 8%
NEW YORK, April 28 —
Joby Aviation completed the first electric air taxi flight from JFK to Manhattan, and the stock popped roughly 8% on the demo.
- JOBY shares rose ~8% on the NYC demonstration catalyst, trading around $8.78
- Street-high analyst price target sits at $18, implying roughly 105% upside from current levels
- Earnings report upcoming, with investors watching for FAA certification timeline updates
What Actually Happened
Joby flew its electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft from JFK Airport into Manhattan. Not a simulation. Not a hover test in the desert. A real flight in the most congested airspace in the country, which tells you something about how far along the FAA coordination has come even before formal certification.
The NYC route matters because it's the exact use case air taxi bulls have been pitching for years: skip the $80 cab ride and 90 minutes of traffic from JFK by flying over it. If Joby can operate here, every other metro market is easier. The demo also puts Joby ahead of competitors like Archer Aviation and Lilium in terms of visible, public milestone-setting in a tier-one market.
That said, a demo flight is not a commercial service. Nobody bought a ticket.
The Catch
Joby has $53mn in TTM revenue and a negative forward P/E of -18.9x. Those numbers tell you this is still a company spending far more than it earns, funded by the promise of a market that doesn't exist yet. The stock has been public since 2021, and the core question has never changed: when does the FAA actually certify this aircraft for commercial passenger flights?
Every eVTOL company in history has missed its original certification timeline. Joby initially targeted 2024. The goalposts keep moving because the FAA has never certified an aircraft in this category before. There is no template. Each milestone looks great in isolation, but the gap between "impressive demo" and "revenue-generating route network" has swallowed billions of investor capital across the industry.
Bottom Line
This is a legitimate engineering milestone and a smart piece of marketing. Flying JFK to Manhattan is the kind of thing that gets on the evening news and stays in institutional investors' minds. But at $53mn TTM revenue and deep losses, this remains a bet on regulatory timing, not fundamentals. The $18 street-high target assumes a lot goes right on schedule.
Watch the upcoming earnings call for two things: cash burn rate and any specific language on FAA certification timing. If Joby gives a date, this stock re-rates. If they don't, the demo was just a demo.
For a full breakdown of Joby Aviation's financials, generate a free report at basisreport.com/stock/joby.
Basis Report does not hold positions in securities discussed. This is not investment advice.