Joby rings the bell, Ampaire in Scotland & more (Allplane Newsletter #59)

 

Let’s start, as usual, with the action in the sustainable aviation world:

Joby Aviation, one of the front-runners in the eVTOL space, has rung the bell at the New York Stock Market, after successfully completing its SPAC merger. The eVTOL startup is now a listed company (ticker “JOBY”) and it moved an aircraft cross-country (by land) all the way to Wall Street, for all to see.

First flight of a hybrid-electric Ampaire aircraft in the Orkney Islands. This archipelago off the north coast of Scotland is emerging as a test ground for green aircraft technology.

Northvolt video featuring Heart Aerospace, the Swedish electric aircraft startup developing a 19-seater regional plane.

I recently had the chance to speak with Richard Wand, the CEO of Cuberg, Northvolt’s advanced batteries arm (with a strong focus on aviation applications) on the podcast

Yet another deal for Embraer’s Eve, this time in Africa, with Kenya Airways (through a subsidiary of the latter called Fahari Aviation). No specific figures were provided about future aircraft orders or the like, other than the two companies will partner to push forward the development of UAM craft in the region. Here’s the press release.

In a recent conversation with an eVTOL expert, he pointed out that some of the most interesting use cases for this type of technology are in those parts of the world that lack much land infrastructure. Just mobile phones allowed as those areas leapfrog landlines, a similar thing may happen with air mobility.

The Brazilian aircraft maker had, in fact, quite a few announcements in the sustainability area this week:

Nuremberg airport wants to be the epicentre of eVTOL and electric regional air mobility development in Germany. It counts on Lilium, which is also based in Bavaria, to make it possible

Electric aircraft startup Overair unveiled its concept, called the Butterfly, a four-engined tilt-rotor battery-powered aircraft with a range of 100 miles. The Californian firm also promises it will be the quietest eVTOL in the market. Here’s a rather comprehensive summary

Interesting overview piece about electric aviation, highlighting its transformative potential for the general aviation industry. It provides also nice, clear summary of some of its main concepts. Here is the link: “Shocking Potential”

Some “traditional” airlines have had novelties as well:

airBaltic announced it has started implementing something called Required Navigation Performance with Authorization Required (RNP AR) in A220-300 approaches to its Riga airport hub, in Latvia. This is a high precision procedure to cut on fuel consumption and emissions. All good, but wondering whether this is offset by the airline recently getting into the market for (allegedly) energy-hungry (and, arguably, rather pointless) NFTs

Iberia reported it is pushing ahead with its AVIATOR programme, an EU-funded project that aims to study in depth the formation and emission of different sort of particles and gases in conventional aircraft engines, with the aim of developing better measurement and mitigation technologies. The tests are being conducted with an Airbus A340-600 at an empty Ciudad Real airport

WHAT ELSE HAS HAPPENED IN THE AVIATION WORLD?

JetBlue had its inaugural flight to London, to great excitement of all the aviation press. I wrote a piece for The Point Guy about this much awaited route already back in 2019, got some predictions off (Heathrow looked off-limits at the time), but, of course, a lot has happened since then

Some pictures of Amazon’s Prime Air new cargo hub, posted by the CEO of Amazon’s WorldWide Consumer

Norse Atlantic Airways has unveiled its livery and corporate branding. If red was the dominant colour at Bjørn Kjos earlier airline venture (Norwegian), this one is eminently blue

Has Amadeus, the airline IT giant, taken in too much debt?

Lattitude Hub, the new airline based in the Canary Islands, has suspended operations one week after its launch (apparently to come back in Autumn). While I am not privy to the circumstances that have motivated this particular move, it doesn’t look like the Canaries-Europe market is lacking supply.

 
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