New Saudi airline, BETA's new eCTOL, IATA & more (The Allplane Newsletter #119)
There’s a new episode of the Allplane podcast!
Hemant Mistry is VP of Energy Transition at IATA, the organisation representing nearly 300 airlines from around the World. With Hemant we talk about IATA’s views on decarbonization and sustainability and the initiatives that the main industry body is pursuing on this front…
Advanced Air Mobility
Exciting times as several eVTOL projects are getting more real by the day. Archer is close to completing its first production Midnight aircraft. READ.
The Midnight is to be produced in Covington, Georgia. Meanwhile, the firm is also completing a testing and development facility near San José, California, which is expected to be ready this April. READ.
BETA Technologies unveiled a new eCTOL design based in great part on the ALIA-250 eVTOL, but skipping the vertical take off and land and hovering parts allows for a faster path to certification and to market. READ.
BETA Technologies CX300
Six different testing areas for drones have been established in Finland, each one focusing on a different application of pilotless aircraft, from logistics to forestry. READ.
Japanese eVTOL developer SkyDrive and VPorts will collaborate at the AAM Integrator center in Dubai. READ.
SITA will provide software for Volocopter’s vertiport operations and is participating in the German eVTOL developer’s Series E round. READ.
(We did a 4-episode series in partnership with SITA last year, showcasing several different interesting aviation technologies, check it out this one, for example)
AutoFlight got an order for 205 of its eVTOLs from EVFLY. This operator intends to deploy the first of these in the Middle East. READ.
I can already anticipate you that we will soon have some more stuff from AutoFlight here, so watch this space!
Hydrogen Aviation
ZeroAvia has released a 4-minute video of the recent successful flight test:
For further context about ZeroAvia, listen to the podcast episode we did with its founder, Val Miftakhov.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
LanzaTech will produce sustainable aviation fuel out of waste in Abu Dhabi. READ.
JetBlue is to get 10M gallons of blended SAF from Shell over the next couple of years at LAX. California is becoming one of the SAF hotspots of the World. READ.
Air Greenland will use 5% SAF blends, well above the European 2% mandate. This initiative will cover the airline’s Copenhagen route, the longest and largest (by capacity) it has, since it is where it deploys its A330-800neo. READ.
Other sustainable aviation news
This week’s episode of ·Cleaning Up” Michael Liebreich’s podcast (compulsory listening for anyone interested in renewable energy!) is about aviation. An hour of in-depth conversation with Rob Miller, Professor of Aerothermal Engineering at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Whittle Laboratory, about the pros and cons of several different decarbonization paths for aviation. LISTEN TO IT.
What else in aviation?
Another interesting airline network analysis by Oliver Ranson, this time the “Three Capes” refer to three Southern Hemisphere airlines: Qantas, South African Airways and Aerolíneas Argentinas. READ.
Related somehow to this topic, this old piece of mine on The Points Guy about long haul routes within the Southern Hemisphere.
Kind of expected, but the new Saudi carrier was finally presented, Riyadh Air. If it follows through with all its aircraft orders, it will get 72 Dreamliners. Saudia also placed and order for 49 B787s!
Flying the flag: which airlines have had special liveries celebrating their respective national flags? Here’s a list.
airBaltic
Turkish Airlines is leasing some B777s to Indigo and they are getting painted in the livery of the Indian LCC. WATCH THE PICS.
David Neeleman, founder of Breeze, Azul and JetBlue shares some insights about his latest project and his trajectory as a serial airline entrepreneur, on AeroTime’s Executive Spotlight. READ.