Merlin, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results

BOSTON, Aug. 13, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Merlin, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRLN), an aerospace and defense technology company building the operating system of record for autonomous flight, today announced operating and financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2026.

Business Highlights * USSOCOM C-130J contract progress. On June 4, 2026, Merlin announced the completion of the Critical Design Review (CDR) for the C-130J autonomy program. The next phase is to integrate the system onto an aircraft and then begin ground testing, moving Merlin closer to deployment across USSOCOM’s C-130J fleet. * Autonomous landing milestone at Oshkosh. On July 17, 2026, Merlin executed the first fully autonomous landing at the EAA AirVenture Oshkosh airport using a conventional fixed wing aircraft (Cessna 208B Grand Caravan). * Strategic industry partnership expansion. Merlin and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding to advance AI-powered autonomy for Part 25 commercial cargo aircraft. The collaboration establishes a phased path toward platform integration, civil certification, and commercialization, expanding Merlin’s partner ecosystem and positioning its technology to address the approximately 2,400-aircraft global civil cargo market (excluding China and Russia) identified in Airbus's 2025 Cargo Global Market Forecast. * Civil certification progress. Merlin has achieved the Stage of Involvement 3 (SOI 3) milestone with the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority (CAANZ), in coordination with the FAA under a Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement. Separately, Merlin successfully concluded an important certification issue paper with the CAANZ addressing the use of AI/ML-based natural language processing within Merlin Pilot, which enables voice-based interaction with air traffic control. This technical progress advances Merlin’s civil certification strategy and long-term objective of addressing a global commercial aviation market of more than 22,000 aircraft as reported in the August 2025 IATA Global Commercial Aircraft Fleet Report. “Each of these milestones tackles an independent challenge across commercial, technology, and certification, and that diversity is what makes them so important. We believe these milestones represent meaningful evidence of progress toward our mission to build a certifiable autonomous core that is capable of safely and reliably flying any aircraft for any use case. In other words, we are building what we believe will be the operating system of record for the next century of aviation” said Matt George, CEO of Merlin.