Archer Aviation Beats on Revenue but Widens Loss as FAA Path Stretches

Archer Aviation posted $5.1 million in third-quarter revenue, beating the $3.57 million consensus — and then lost more money per share than analysts expected. The GAAP loss came in at 35 cents, a penny worse than the 34-cent estimate and a widening from 20 cents a year earlier. Shares of ACHR fell the morning after the report.

Analysts had expected the loss to widen year over year. Missing an already low bar still stings. It also frames the core problem for Archer and rivals Joby Aviation and Vertical Aerospace: they are building a category from scratch through a complex FAA certification process, which makes valuation work unusually difficult for analysts.

How did the sell side react?

Needham & Company and Cantor Fitzgerald both reiterated bullish ratings — and both cut their price targets. Needham lowered its target to $7; Cantor lowered its to $10. Both sit below the $11 consensus among analysts tracked by MarketBeat, against a share price near $4.69 at the time of the forecast table.

The revenue itself tells a narrow story. The $5.1 million came mostly from initial engine deliveries for Anduril's Omen program. Management guided fourth-quarter revenue of $5 million to $6 million, driven by further Omen deliveries and operations at Hawthorne Airport — part of a deliberate move to reduce reliance on the eVTOL business.

What does the FAA certificate actually change?

The headline regulatory item: Midnight received a Market Survey Special Airworthiness Certificate. CEO Adam Goldstein called it the company's "most important commercialization milestone to date," permitting piloted flights in Los Angeles from Hawthorne Airport in the coming weeks. Archer plans to use those flights to build toward carrying passengers under the Department of Transportation's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games — where Archer is the official air taxi provider — as the showcase.

Read the fine print, because the certificate is not the certificate. It does not grant type certification, the prerequisite for routine commercial service. It permits Midnight to fly in real-world conditions, including over densely populated areas and busy airspace, after Archer completed 50 hours of testing in a stable configuration and submitted performance and range data for FAA review.

One limitation matters more than the rest. The certificate covers Midnight only in its conventional takeoff and landing configuration — it takes off and lands like an airplane. Archer has not yet completed piloted transition flight, the shift from vertical lift to wing-borne flight that defines an eVTOL. The company expects to finish that campaign by year-end, then repeat the process for a market survey certificate covering vertical operations.

Midnight remains in the fourth and final phase of the FAA's type certification process, where Archer must demonstrate compliance against agreed test plans. Systems and equipment testing is underway. Management offered no completion date.

How long can the cash hold out?

Archer ended the quarter with roughly $1.35 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments — down about $207 million from the prior quarter. It guided to a fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA loss of $185 million to $205 million. Cash burn persists as long as certification drags.

The Boeing acquisitions complicate the picture. Archer said its purchases of Wisk, SkyGrid and Insitu from Boeing are close to completion, with one regulatory approval remaining. Insitu alone has historically generated more than $200 million in annual revenue with positive operating cash flow.

Institutional buyers have outnumbered sellers over the past year, according to MarketBeat. Yet institutional ownership sits below 60%, and short interest exceeded 15% of the float as of October 15 — a recipe for short-term volatility.

Goldstein now expects passenger flights to begin in 2027. Joby, for comparison, expects FAA flight testing under its Type Inspection Authorization process to begin in the same year. Type certification remains unguaranteed; the report identified no new setback, but no timeline either.