Lilium gets sued, Ryanair buys SAF & more (The Allplane Newsletter #83)

New podcast episode

Guest appearance at the No U-Turn Podcast, talking about advanced air mobility and, more generally, about big trends in aviation. Check it out here!

Sustainable Aviation News

Electric flight

US commuter airline Cape Air, which operates some 400 flights a day across America, has signed a letter of intent for 75 of Eviation’s electric 9-seater aircraft. LINK

Iceland joining the Nordic decarbonization drive, Icelandair sees prospects for alternative propulsion technologies in its domestic operations already within this decade. LINK

Advanced Air Mobility

Supply chains for the eVTOL industry are taking shape. Hexcel is going to supply composites for Archer’s aircraft. LINK.

Lilium is being sued by shareholders that are apparently unhappy with progress being made in its eVTOL development. LINK

Beta Technologies has raised another $375M for its cargo eVTOL programme. LINK

Embraer’s EVE and Thales partner in the eVTOL space. Unclear what this deal will involve beyond “a number of studies to be conducted over a period of 12 months”. LINK

Sustainable Aviation Fuel

Sustainable Aero Lab has mapped the SAF ecosystem. Check out the infographics.

Ryanair will power its Amsterdam flights with 40% SAF supplied by Neste. Quite a high-% blend! LINK

Austrian Airlines has started to receive sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from, also Austrian, OMV. The supply agreement was signed last December and deliveries started this March. Austrian expects to go from some 2,000 metric tons of SAF this year to 700,000 by 2030. LINK

Hydrogen flight

Sergey Kiselev, ZeroAvia’s CCO, makes the case for hydrogen (obviously). LINK

Other aviation sustainability stories

JetBlue Technology Ventures has invested an undisclosed amount in the TPG Rise Climate Fund, a $6.8B fund that invests in climate solutions at scale. LINK

Etihad will conduct some 50 “eco-flights” to continue testing contrail-avoiding technology and some of the operational improvements that, it claims, reduced carbon emissions by a whooping 72% compared to a similar flight in 2019. LINK

The Dutch advertising regulatory body has ruled that the way KLM presented its off-set programme was misleading, suggesting reforestation programmes erased the environmental impact of flying. LINK

What else in aviation?

It looks like the current financial difficulties and the IAG acquisition imbroglio is not preventing Air Europa from increasing its fleet with 11 new aircraft, 5 Dreamliners, of which 4 wet-leased from Norse Atlantic (first chance to try the new Norwegian airline product?) and 6 B737s. LINK

All-business class, “boutique” airline La Compagnie has launched flights between Milan and New York (Newark, EWR). LINK

The first A321XLR is approaching completion at Airbus in Hamburg. PICS.

New airlines of 2022: the list has been updated. LINK

New article on The Points Guy about hypersonic air travel. A pipe dream? Some startups think it is very feasible and sooner than you expect. Check out my piece here.

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