Lilium Jet
Lilium · Germany · Air Mobility · also known as Lilium Pioneer Edition, Lilium 7-Seater · Updated
Lilium Jet was a battery-electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft developed by Lilium in Wessling, Germany. It was designed to carry people: the production configuration had seven seats, one pilot and six passengers. The programme ended without a certificated aircraft after the company went through insolvency twice and stopped operating, and the prototypes were scrapped.
Design and capabilities
The Lilium Jet differed from the multirotor designs that dominate this class. It had a fixed wing and canard, with rows of small electric fans embedded in flaps along the trailing edges. The flaps rotated downwards for vertical take-off and landing and back to the horizontal for cruise, so the same units provided lift on the ground and thrust in the air. The production layout used 36 electric motors fed by a lithium-ion battery pack, with no combustion engine and no conventional propellers or rotors.
Published figures for the production aircraft gave a cruise speed of about 280 km/h, a maximum speed of about 300 km/h and a range of about 300 km, which placed it at the longer-range, faster end of the electric air taxi field rather than in the short urban-hop role. The trade-off was a high power demand in the hover and a demanding battery specification. Earlier demonstrators were smaller: a two-seat Eagle prototype first flew on 20 April 2017, and a five-seat demonstrator first flew in May 2019.
Programme status
Lilium was pursuing a European type certificate when its funding failed. On 24 October 2024 the German subsidiaries Lilium GmbH and Lilium eAircraft GmbH filed for self-administered insolvency, after a request for a state loan guarantee in Bavaria was declined. A rescue investment later in 2024 kept the business alive briefly under a successor entity. That arrangement collapsed in February 2025 when investors withdrew, and the company filed for insolvency again and stopped operations; more than 700 people lost their jobs, and coverage on 25 February 2025 described the shutdown as total. In April 2026 the remaining Lilium prototypes were scrapped. No Lilium Jet was ever type certificated and none entered service.
FAQ
Is it flying today? No. The programme ended, the company stopped operating in February 2025, and the prototypes were scrapped in April 2026.
How many people does it carry? The production design was to seat seven, one pilot and six passengers. It was a crewed aircraft, not an uncrewed one.
Did it ever fly? Yes, as prototypes. A two-seat demonstrator flew in April 2017 and a five-seat demonstrator in May 2019, but the seven-seat production aircraft did not reach certification.
