After a remote flight around the Marina Municipal Airport, people crowd around the first Joby Aviation aircraft to roll off the Pilot Production Line at the Joby Aviation Production Launch in Marina on June 28, 2023. (James Herrera/Monterey Herald)
MARINA – An existing facility, recently acquired by Joby Aviation in Ohio, will be fitted out to support initial manufacturing operations for the manufacturing of aircraft parts for Joby’s Pilot Production Line in Marina.
“We’re pleased to be able to acquire an underutilized facility at Dayton International Airport and repurpose it as a modern, high-tech manufacturing center to serve as our initial manufacturing footprint in the region,” said Didier Papadopoulos, president of Aircraft OEM at Joby, in a press release. “Later this year, we expect to begin subtractive manufacturing of titanium and aluminum aircraft parts as we continue to grow our workforce in Dayton.”
The company has designed and is producing an electric air taxi that will carry a pilot and four passengers at speeds up to 200 mph and offer high-speed mobility with a fraction of the noise produced by helicopters, and zero operating emissions. Joby Aviation plans to operate these aircraft as part of aerial ridesharing networks in cities and communities around the world, starting in 2025, building on partnerships it has developed with Delta and Uber.
Joby has been doing business and developing a manufacturing facility in Marina for the past six years where it launched production of its aircraft at its Pilot Production Plant with the first aircraft rolling off the line in June 2023, to begin flight testing. The Marina facility is one of three in California with others at Santa Cruz — where the company is headquartered — and San Carlos. Joby Aviation also has a facility in Munich.
Last week the company announced its acquisition of the existing facility at Dayton International Airport where it has begun hiring in support of its initial operations there. The facility acquired by Joby will be fitted out to support initial manufacturing operations in Dayton, Ohio, which are expected to begin later this year. The facility will be used for the manufacturing of aircraft parts in support of Joby’s Pilot Production Line in Marina.
Joby’s acquisition of the on-airport facility is the first step in the company’s plan to develop facilities capable of building up to 500 aircraft per year in Dayton, which is expected to include the design and construction of a larger factory.
In September, Joby announced it had selected Dayton – beating out Marina and other contenders – as the location for its scaled manufacturing facility, capable of producing up to 500 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft per year, with plans to invest up to $500 million and create up to 2,000 high-quality, clean manufacturing jobs in the region.
At that time, the company also said it planned to start hiring in the coming months, with early roles expected to focus on the build-out of the scaled facility and the machining of parts that would initially be incorporated into Joby’s California low-volume production line in Marina.
“I am deeply appreciative to the Dayton community, and Ohio more broadly, for the warm welcome we have received as well as the high level of interest in joining our team,” said Papadopoulos. “We look forward to continued collaboration and to growing our presence in the Miami Valley region as we build the future of flight in the birthplace of aviation.”
Joby plans to build a facility capable of delivering hundreds of aircraft a year at the Dayton International Airport. The 140-acre site it has selected has the potential to support significant further growth over time, providing enough land to build up to 2 million square feet of manufacturing space. Construction of the scaled Ohio facility is expected to start this year and it is expected to come online in 2025. In the meantime, Joby’s plan to use existing nearby buildings to begin near-term operations has begun.
