Widerøe Zero, ZeroAvia, Russian SAF & more (The Allplane Newsletter #71)
One more week, one more dose of aviation news and stories, with, as always, a strong focus on the very dynamic sustainable aviation space:
There is a new episode of the podcast available! This time connecting with Norway for an interview with one of the most serious and active players in the field of electric aviation:
Andreas Kollbye Aks, head of strategy at Widerøe, explains how this Norwegian airline aims to be a pioneer in electric aviation and how through the newly created Widerøe Zero subsidiary will be pushing forward sustainable flying technology
It’s been a pretty big news for the aviation hydrogen ecosystem.
ZeroAvia has released a whole raft of major news this week:
It has secured both orders (50 + 50 optional) as well as investment ($35M) from no less than United Airlines!
ZeroAvia is also partnering with De Havilland Canada to work on a hydrogen-powered version of the Dash-8-400 turboprop
Also in the hydrogen world, airline start up Connect Airlines aims to have at least part of its fleet hydrogen powered by using Universal Hydrogen’s H2 capsule technology on
What’s new in the world of Electric Aircraft and eVTOLs?
Tailwind Air, the seaplane operator that recently launched a route between Boston and New York, has signed a letter of interest (LOI) for 20 Airflow M200 eSTOL amphibious aircraft, the first seaplane to use all-electric distributed propulsion
This article on Forbes makes the case for Volocopter, that it presents essentially as a new sort of cheaper, greener (and slower) helicopter for urban use cases.
Interesting profile of Bellwether, an eVTOL startup founded in 2019 that is designing a 2-seat eVTOL for intracity travel. They claim to have successfully flown a half scale prototype in Dubai.
Here’s an interesting story: Electra, an American startup developing eSTOL aircraft, is partnering with flyv, a German, let’s say, “new generation airline”, which instead of having fixed capacity, will use algorithms to adjust its (regional)network to demand on an ongoing basis. The agreement will see flyv acquiring up to 100 of Electra’s aircraft, so not really a “virtual” airline anymore
Vertical Aerospace is now listed on the Ny Stock Exchange following its successful SPAC merger with Broadstrone Acquisiton Corp.
This story is a few days old, but forgot to add it in the previous newsletter send out! Embraer’s EVE keeps growing its network of partners across the globe by signing two new operators in Australia. One of them is Sydney Seaplanes, whose founder was here on the podcast.
More news in other areas of sustainable aviation
SAF is making inroads even in countries that are very dependent on the fossil-fuel economy. Airbus, Aeroflot, S7, Volga-Dnepr and two Russian research institutes have joined forces in the “Eurasian SAF Alliance” to develop the production of SAF in Russia, with the goal to have flights powered with domestically-produced SAF by 2024.
SAS is rewarding members of its frequent flyer programme with extra miles when they top up their bookings with sustainable aviation fuel purchases
Amazing zoom-in animation showing the number of airports and airfields in the US. The expectation is that eVTOL and eSTOL technology will bring new uses to many of them and a much more distributed air transport network.
Interesting report by Stonehaven and Robertsbridge, “The Future of Flying”, about the public’s attitudes to travel in the era of covid and climate change. Suggests a gap in preferences between Anglo-Saxon countries and continental Europe.
3 myths about green bonds (on Neste’s blog)
Axel Krein, executive director of the European Partnership for Clean Aviation, the EU’s body in charge of pushing the green aviation agenda forward, outlines the priorities of this organization in this article
What else in “traditional” aviation?
KLM will be flying Airbus for the first time in its >100yr history! The Dutch airline, together with its LCC subsidiary Transavia, will be getting 100 A320neos.
Some updates to the new airlines of 2021 list.
A couple of stories about airBaltic
The Latvian airline has announced the opening of a base in the Finnish city of Tampere
It’s been 5 years since the A220-300 flew its first commercial service, between Riga and Amsterdam. We were not on that particular flight but were in Riga a few days earlier to welcome the delivery flight from Montreal.