NBAA-BACE day two: BETA's Alia cleared to carry passengers as FAA talks access and SOPs

Day two of NBAA-BACE in Las Vegas produced the most concrete advanced air mobility news of the show so far, alongside a steady stream of regulatory and safety signals that matter for charter brokers and operators.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy used his appearance at the convention to announce that the FAA has issued BETA Technologies a special airworthiness certificate that allows passengers aboard its Alia 250. According to NBAA, this is a first for an eVTOL aircraft. A special airworthiness certificate is not full type certification and does not open the door to commercial air taxi sales, but it is a meaningful step: brokers who have been fielding "when can my client book an eVTOL?" questions now have a real milestone to point to, and operators planning short-hop or airport-shuttle products should keep watching how the FAA builds on it.

Duffy also spoke about safety and certification more broadly at the same event, which also included a panel on changing the culture around pilot mental wellness.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford joined NBAA's Kristie Greco Johnson for a wide-ranging conversation on modernising the US air traffic control system and improving business aviation's access to the National Airspace System. For anyone quoting US flights into congested hubs, access and ATC capacity remain the practical constraint behind slot delays and reroutes, so any follow-through on these plans is worth tracking.

A session on NBAA's initiative to establish standardised operating procedures across business aviation drew calls from industry safety leaders for operators to adopt a common risk-mitigation framework. A shared SOP baseline would also give brokers a clearer yardstick when vetting operators they have not flown with before.

• Wheels Up and Honeywell: AIN reports Wheels Up has signed a Honeywell fleet maintenance plan for its Challengers, building on Honeywell's fixed-price coverage for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance on avionics, control systems, engines and APUs.
• Pratt & Whitney Canada PT9: AVweb reports P&WC unveiled its PT9 turboprop engine at the show after Transport Canada certification, with more than 14,000 hours of development work behind the programme, according to parent RTX.
• Humanitarian award: NBAA gave Signature Aviation and the SunGate Foundation its 2026 Al Ueltschi Award for Humanitarian Leadership for their work against human trafficking.

The eVTOL headline grabs attention, but the near-term business impact sits with access, ATC modernisation and safety standardisation. Brokers can use the SOP push as another data point when choosing operators, and operators should expect clients and partners to ask more about formal safety frameworks.

Sources: NBAA-BACE Insider Daily (NBAA), 21 October 2026, including items from NBAA, AIN and AVweb. Summary and analysis by Jet Intelligence. This brief is an original rewrite and is not a verbatim reproduction of those publications.