Electra expands Manassas headquarters

Manassas-based aviation startup Electra.aero on Tuesday announced it is expanding its headquarters in Virginia as well as a location in Bleienbach, Switzerland.

At Manassas Regional Airport, Electra is leasing a new 15,000-square-foot hangar and 6,000-square-foot office space, expanding the company’s total footprint in Manassas to 57,000 square feet. The company says the expansion will house development and engineering teams. Financial terms of the leases were not disclosed.

“Electra is on a mission to transform aviation, and expanding our facilities ensures we will continue attracting the world-class engineering talent to design, develop and commercialize our groundbreaking EL9,” said Electra CEO Marc Allen in a statement. “We’re giving our teams the resources they need to get our ultra-short aircraft into the hands of our customers and deliver on the promise of direct aviation, making regional air travel more convenient, affordable, and sustainable.”

Spokesperson Barbara Zadina said that this year, Electra has doubled its team from 40 employees to more than 80, and that the new facilities “provide much-needed space.” The company, she said, is still hiring across all functions as it continues to scale.

With more than 30 open positions listed on Electra’s website, Zadina said, the company is likely to grow to 120 employees by early 2026.

In Europe, Electra expanded its research and development center in Bleienbach, now leasing 2,000 square feet. The company says the facility is crucial for attracting talent and advancing its global engineering efforts.

The company’s EL9 model is a hybrid ultra-short aircraft that can take off and land in 150 feet. The company says the model opens thousands of new access points ranging from small, underserved airports to nontraditional sites such as parking lots or fields.

“The two hangars at Manassas Regional Airport provide the space we need to develop our nine-passenger EL9 aircraft on our planned timeline,” Zadina said in an email.

Electra plans to begin flight testing the EL9 in 2027, to fly for FAA certification credit in 2028 and 2029, and to get the airplane certified and into service in late 2029 or 2030. So far, the company has secured more than 2,200 provisional orders from over 60 customers worldwide, valued at more than $13 billion.

Founded in 2020, Electra announced in April that it had secured $115 million in Series B funding to enter the pre-production and certification phase of the EL9 model. Electra’s strategic investors include Lockheed Martin Ventures and Honeywell.