Matthew George

No traditionally crewed, fixed-wing aircraft has ever flown autonomously in commercial revenue service. We're targeting New Zealand in 2027. Our goal is for Merlin to be the first company to do that with real autonomy on real planes flying real routes in revenue-generating operations. We've been operating a flight test center in Kerikeri since 2022, logging hundreds of autonomous flights with Merlin Pilot, the same system we're certifying with New Zealand's CAA on a concurrent validation pathway with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). We're now approaching the final phases of that certification journey. Many of the companies attempting to commercialize autonomous flight are using custom-built eVTOL airframes or remote operators. We're doing it the hard way, on fixed-wing aircraft with autonomy in the cockpit, because we believe that's what the future of aviation actually looks like.