Burlington’s airport and Plattsburgh’s are about 20 miles apart as the crow flies. On the ground, the trip means a ferry ride or a long drive around the lake. That gap matters to UVM Health, which runs hospitals on both sides of Lake Champlain, including Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh and Elizabethtown Community Hospital.
South Burlington’s BETA Technologies and Metro Aviation, the company that flies UVM Health’s medical helicopter, have proposed closing that gap with electric planes carrying medical equipment and blood products across the lake. The flights were picked for a federal test program in March. They haven’t started.
“BETA is participating in the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s eIPP project, which includes operations in Vermont. The project has not yet launched, and we are working with the Port Authority to finalize a launch date consistent with the Executive Order,” BETA told Compass in a Sept. 30 written statement. The company said it could not share more about how the flights would operate.
Meanwhile, BETA and Metro have begun similar tests in North Carolina and Texas.
Why an electric plane, when there’s already a helicopter
UVM Medical Center has had a critical-care helicopter based in Burlington since Aug. 23, 2018. It started as a partnership with Dartmouth’s DHART air ambulance service: Dartmouth coordinated the flight requests, UVM Medical Center supplied the medical crew, and Metro flew the helicopter, according to Metro. UVM Health’s transport service still lists Metro as its aviation provider. When the helicopter was announced, a UVM Medical Center official said moving a sick patient from rural upstate New York to Burlington could take three or four hours.
That helicopter is for the sickest patients. It is expensive to buy and to run, and Metro says those costs keep climbing while Medicare and Medicaid payments stay flat or decline. Todd Stanberry, Metro’s vice president, told Vertical magazine in November 2024 that helicopter purchase and maintenance costs are on a “45-degree incline.”
At first, the electric plane would do a different job: moving medical supplies, with the goal of lowering the cost of air delivery. Metro has called BETA’s aircraft a simpler, cheaper alternative to the helicopter, and plans to use it first for equipment and blood products, then later for clinicians and eventually patients, Vermont Public reported in January. Neither company’s announcements of the tests so far report operating costs or delivery times.
What’s flying elsewhere
The tests are part of a federal program, the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program, or eIPP, run by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the FAA. (eVTOL is short for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, though the program also covers planes that use runways.) It lets electric aircraft that haven’t finished FAA certification fly real missions in regular airspace, under agreements that spell out what each company may do. BETA was picked for seven of the program’s eight projects in March, as Compass reported at the time.
BETA says it has now flown program missions in five states. September demonstrations in North Carolina and Texas involved Metro. Earlier flights tested organ transport:
North Carolina. Since Sept. 17, BETA has flown simulated deliveries of medical cargo to rural medical sites, including a deployable field tent and supplies, with Metro and health systems including ECU Health and WakeMed. These are tests, not a working delivery service.
Texas. BETA and Metro flew with Washington County EMS in Brenham in September, testing how the plane could move disaster-response equipment alongside the county’s helicopter and ambulances. Metro already flies that county’s medical helicopter.
Virginia and Maryland. BETA’s first program flight, in July, carried a genetically modified pig heart between airports to test how transplant organs could be moved.
Where the Vermont flights stand
BETA didn’t say why the start is taking longer here. What the public record shows:
Vermont isn’t running its own project. The Lake Champlain flights are one piece of a larger project led by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which also includes Archer, Joby, Electra and Wisk. The Port Authority’s description of its project, as published by ROI-NJ, names JFK, LaGuardia, Newark and New York City heliports. It lists medical and rural missions among its plans but doesn’t name Vermont; BETA’s March announcement did. Vermont Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn wrote a letter of support in December; the state is a supporter, not the applicant.
Elsewhere, first flights came months after selection. The projects were picked March 9. BETA’s first program flights, in Virginia and Maryland, came in July, about four months later. North Carolina’s medical test flights started Sept. 17, about six months later.
The FAA, not the states, sets flight rules. States cannot waive federal flight requirements, but their decisions about infrastructure, permitting and funding can affect how quickly projects get ready.
BETA already flies here. BETA’s headquarters and factory sit at the Burlington airport, which the Vermont Air National Guard’s F-35s share, and its planes already fly from there; in June it took a WCAX crew up over Chittenden County and the lake. BETA says it has run a flight test center at Plattsburgh’s airport since 2017, and it announced a $41 million expansion there in 2023, with $20 million from New York State.
The clock starts with an agreement. The 2025 executive order that created the program directed federal officials to pick projects that planned to begin flying within 90 days after their project agreements were in place. BETA’s statement did not say whether the Port Authority project’s agreement is in place.
What the planes can and can’t do
The aircraft in all of these tests is BETA’s ALIA CTOL, short for conventional takeoff and landing. It needs a runway, like any small plane, so a delivery goes airport to airport, with a car or truck carrying the cargo at each end. BETA’s vertical-takeoff version, which could land at a hospital helipad, comes later in the company’s plan. Metro announced a deposit-backed order for up to 20 of those in November 2024.
This is so awesome! I have been following Beta news since it's inception here in Vermont and it's test pilot program in Texas. It will be fun to watch and read how Beta continues to succeed. Thank you for another in depth reportage! Compass reporting is reliable and thorough.