Senate Introduces Bipartisan Bill to Bring Predictability to FAA Certification of Advanced Air Mobility Aircraft

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has introduced legislation aimed at injecting greater transparency and efficiency into the Federal Aviation Administration’s type certification process for next-generation aircraft. The Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act, introduced in mid-February 2026, targets longstanding uncertainties that have slowed progress for developers of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and other advanced air mobility (AAM) platforms.

The measure arrives at a pivotal moment for the AAM sector. Just two months earlier, the U.S. Department of Transportation released its Advanced Air Mobility National Strategy, a 10-year roadmap that envisions initial demonstrations and limited operations by 2027, expanding to new urban and rural routes with powered-lift aircraft by 2030, and more autonomous capabilities by 2035. Industry leaders have repeatedly cited regulatory predictability as one of the largest remaining hurdles to meeting those milestones.

The bill does not alter safety standards or create expedited approval lanes that bypass rigorous review. Instead, it directs the FAA to establish standard expected timelines for key certification milestones specific to AAM aircraft. These include responses to petitions for type exemptions and the development of means of compliance for designs that fall outside traditional airplane or rotorcraft categories. It also requires the agency to define when issue papers—formal documents outlining novel technical challenges—are necessary, while preserving flexibility for complex safety questions. Transparent ranges for the issue-paper review process would give applicants clearer expectations of review durations.

Additional provisions clarify and expand the FAA’s ability to delegate routine compliance findings to qualified designees, freeing agency engineers to focus on novel technologies such as distributed electric propulsion systems, high-voltage battery integration, and flight-control architectures common to eVTOL and hybrid-electric powered-lift designs. The legislation further updates delegation guidance to explicitly address these emerging technologies and mandates annual reporting to congressional committees on certification workload and implementation progress. It encourages the FAA to accept industry-developed consensus standards as acceptable means of compliance to the maximum extent practicable.

Supporters, including the National Business Aviation Association, General Aviation Manufacturers Association, Aerospace Industries Association, and AAM developers such as Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, Beta Technologies, and Wisk Aero, argue the changes will reduce administrative bottlenecks without compromising the agency’s safety mandate. The bill’s Senate lead sponsors—Sens. Ted Budd (R-NC), Peter Welch (D-VT), Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), John Curtis (R-UT), and others including Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Todd Young (R-IN)—emphasize that greater predictability will help U.S. companies maintain a competitive edge against international programs that have moved more rapidly in some cases.

For city planners and urban mobility officials, the legislation signals a more stable regulatory environment for integrating AAM into metropolitan transportation networks. Vertiport siting, airspace corridors, and ground infrastructure planning can proceed with greater confidence once certification timelines become more foreseeable. Infrastructure developers and airport authorities stand to benefit from clearer signals on when eVTOL and hybrid-electric aircraft may enter commercial service, enabling coordinated investment in charging stations, noise-mitigation measures, and multimodal connections.

Regulators at the FAA will receive explicit direction on workload management and delegation, potentially easing the strain that has contributed to extended review periods for novel aircraft. For original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), reduced uncertainty around issue papers and compliance pathways could shorten overall development cycles and improve investor confidence. Analysts currently project no U.S. eVTOL type certificate before mid-2027 at the earliest, with most programs targeting scaled passenger operations later in the decade; the bill’s framework is designed to help align those efforts with the national strategy’s 2027–2030 targets.

Investors will watch the bill’s progress closely. The AAM market is forecast to reach $115 billion annually by 2035 while supporting hundreds of thousands of jobs in manufacturing, operations, and support services. By addressing process friction rather than safety thresholds, the legislation aims to accelerate commercialization of eVTOL air taxis for intra-city hops, hybrid-electric regional connectors, and autonomous cargo variants without diverting resources from traditional aviation programs.

Companion legislation has been introduced in the House, reflecting broad bicameral interest. If enacted, the Aviation Innovation and Global Competitiveness Act would represent a targeted regulatory refinement rather than wholesale overhaul—precisely the kind of incremental step many stakeholders say is needed to keep U.S. innovation on pace with its ambitious national vision for advanced air mobility.