Eviation, Etihad, Lanzajet...what else? (The Allplane Newsletter #104)
First of all: there’s a new podcast episode!
Vance Hilderman is the founder and CEO of AFuzion, a boutique consultancy firm specializing in aircraft certification. This is an absolutely essential step before bringing a new aircraft to market, and one that, considering the amount of new aircraft projects currently in development, gets relatively little attention!
Sustainable Aviation News
Electric Aviation
Eviation got an order for 25 Alice aircraft from EVIA AERO, a German startup regional airline that aims to deploy an al-electric fleet in Western Europe. LINK.
Ampaire’s hybrid-electric aircraft will feature winglets! Tamarack Aerospace Group will be Ampaire’s partner in this project. LINK.
Btw, Ampaire has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance, to get its hybrid-electric conversion through the STC (Supplemental Type Certificate) process, a necessary step to get any major aircraft modification officially approved. LINK.
Advanced Air Mobility
Volocopter is rebranding its longer-range, inter-city offering to VoloRegion, to better reflect is regional air connectivity ambitions and differentiate it from its intra-urban product, aptly named VoloCity. LINK.
CNN reports on the successful test of the Chinese eVTOL Xpeng X2 eVTOL in Dubai a few days ago. LINK.
Here’s an interesting eVTOL design and a startup that I have just discovered, Plana Aero, started by former senior executive at Hyundai/Supernal and developing a a 7-seater eVTOL with a range of 350 miles, placing it in the same category of the aforementioned VoloRegion. LINK.
Etihad announced what it says it is going to fly delegates from the US to Sharm-el-Sheik for COP27 this November on a NetZero flight. In practice what this means is that Etihad is going to purchase SAF for the equivalent of 100% of the fuel used in this flight under the book and claim system. So, this particular flight is, itself, going be powered by conventional jet fuel, but Etihad is going to pay for SAF produced by World Energy to be delivered at Californian airports to other airlines and to be used elsewhere. LINK.
4Air is going to support Southwest Airlines in allocating and accounting for SAF use. This way, Southwest corporate customers will be better able to claim their Scope 3 carbon reductions resulting from those SAF purchases. LINK.
To learn more about 4Air, check the podcast we did with its CEO, Kennedy Ricci. LINK.
The World Economic Forum has published a white paper with sustainable aviaiton fuel reporting guidelines. LINK.
Hydrogen aviation
Paul Eremenko, founder of Universal Hydrogen, was on the How I Built This podcast, hosted by Guy Raz (btw, one of my favourite podcasts -highly recommended and full of inspiration for entrepreneurs!). LINK.
We had Paul’s co-founder, Jason Chua, on the Allplane podcast as well!
Green Aviation Norway had its public debut with its first Zero Emission Regional Aviation Conference in Oslo about LINK.
Other interesting stories in sustainable aviation
Norway’s Wideroe Zero has launched its Air Mobility Lab, to research and support new ideas in sustainable air mobility in a rather holistic “door to door” way, including integration with other modes of transportation. LINK.
We had the pleasure to have the head of Wideroe Zero, Andreas Aks, on the podcast a few months ago, you can listen to it here.
The TULIPS Consortium, an entity that gathers several European airports investing in decarbonization and sustainability, is preparing its “Green airports” launch event in Amsterdam this 27th October. LINK.
Aviation data provider Cirium is now integrating carbon emissions data for the airlines it tracks. A data point that is very likely to become more and more important as efforts to decarbonize aviation (and travel in general) gather speed. LINK.
What else in aviation?
The EU and the ASEAN have reached a deal to (partly) liberalize air services between the two blocs. This agreement allows carriers to fly between any two points in the two blocs, regardless of country, with some limits (14 weekly services from each member state).
As noted here by Edward Russell, a significant share of the capacity linking the EU and ASEAN is now indirect via the Gulf carriers, they could be the ones most potentially affected if direct links flourish as a result.
Northern Pacific Airways first aircraft has embarked on a maiden voyage, from California to Alaska by way of the Central Pacific. The purpose of the tour is to showcase the aircraft and product with a view to launching a wet-lease operation in the Northern Marianas. I had the chance to ask about all this and the current status of the project in a conversation with the airline’s CEO, Rob McKinney. LINK.
Lufthansa unveiled its upcoming first, business and economy class cabin product revamp, called “Allegris”. These will include full suites in first, a new business class offering as well as the so-called “Sleeper seats 2.0.” in economy, that will allow people to book extra space in their rows to sleep better. LINK.
Also Lufthansa is preparing an exhibition space for its historical fleet, that includes a Ju-52 aircraft and a Lockheed SuperConstellation. This should be ready by 2026, which is when the German airline will mark its centenary. LINK.
Btw, related to the previous story and for further context, here’s my chronicle of a Ju-52 formation flight I took a few years ago over the Swiss Alps & my CNN piece about Lufthansa’s projects in the field of aviation heritage.
Etihad presented its new partnership with Armani. The Italian fashion house has designed the business class dining service and sleeping sets. LINK.
Virgin Atlantic received its first Airbus A330neo (after the delivery had been delayed a few weeks). Beautiful airplane. LINK.
And another airline is about to get a new aircraft delivered is Air Greenland, one of the few carriers in the world to order the A330neo-800. LINK.
It’s NBAA week and Dassault Aviation has released a cool video of the Falcon 6X executive aircraft undergoing testing around the world: