Travis Kalanick returns to rides, this time with Joby air taxi vertiport deal, Yahoo Finance reports

Travis Kalanick, the Uber co-founder and former chief executive who helped build the ride-hailing category, is reportedly returning to mobility, but with a focus on air taxis. A Yahoo Finance report published Monday said Kalanick has landed a deal related to Joby’s aircraft and infrastructure, specifically involving the company’s “vertiports.”

A vertiport is a designated site for aircraft to take off, land, and typically support related ground operations such as passenger access and charging or refueling, depending on the aircraft and system design. In the report, Kalanick is described as shifting from ground-based ride coordination to enabling a hub-and-spoke model for short-distance air mobility.

The Yahoo Finance write-up characterizes the arrangement as a vertiport deal with Joby, an air taxi developer. However, beyond the existence of the deal framework, the report as provided does not include deal economics, site locations, timelines, or whether the agreement covers ownership, development, or operating responsibilities for specific vertiports.

Kalanick’s move also underscores a broader pattern in emerging transport systems, where technology companies increasingly seek partnerships not just for aircraft certification and manufacturing, but for the “last mile” and infrastructure that makes services usable for passengers. For air taxis, that usually means securing real estate, permitting pathways, and the integration of ground access with terminal operations.

Uber’s connection to the story is indirect. The former Uber executive is again participating in a transportation platform, but the reported deal is with Joby rather than with Uber’s own services. Still, the executive leadership and capital-formation playbook that Kalanick helped pioneer in rides could be relevant as air taxi deployments shift from pilots to scalable networks.

As with many early-stage infrastructure arrangements in new mobility markets, key terms determine the real impact, including whether parties share development risk, how revenue is allocated, and how quickly the network can be built and operationalized. The provided report does not detail those elements.

Company or regulatory filings that would normally clarify the scope of an infrastructure agreement were not included in the materials provided for this story, so it is not possible to confirm the exact structure of the agreement from the information on hand.

What to watch next is whether the deal is expanded with additional public details, such as specific vertiport locations, a deployment schedule, and how Joby plans to synchronize aircraft operations with ground infrastructure. Observers will also look for whether this indicates a broader shift by Kalanick’s new business activities toward air mobility infrastructure rather than software-only roles.