Electric aircraft orders, Turkish Airlines reviews & more (The Allplane Newsletter #151)
Picture: ELECTRON Aerospace
Electric Aviation
ELECTRON Aerospace has confirmed a deal with German individual air mobility operator Air2E and US air taxi company Hopscotch Air. This means that the Dutch electric aircraft developer is close to €200 million in pre-orders. READ.
You can also listen here to the podcast episode with Josef Mouris, co-founder and CEO of ELECTRON.
And Air2E was one of the sponsors of the E-Flight Challenge, an electric car vs. place contest that took place across Germany in August 2023!
Dovetail has received a financial support package from the government of Victoria, Australia, and it is relocating there from New South Wales.
One of Dovetail’s co-founders, David Doral, was on the podcast in its early days!
Also in Australia, Skyportz, a company better known as a vertiport developer, has said it is launching an airline subsidiary called Wilbur Air to directly operate flights. It is planning to use Electra.aero STOL hybrid-electric aircraft.
Advanced Air mobility
Joby keeps posting interesting videos about its production process. Here is how the Garmin G3000 is installed.
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
Wizz Air is aiming to use 10% of SAF by 2030.
And Firefly, the SAF producer Wizz Air has invested in, is going ahead with its plans to build a factory to make SAF from sewage.
SkyNRG and Deloitte have published a blog post about how to account for SAF purchases.
Chile will have its SAF plant too, Reuters reports.
Hydrogen Aviation
Japan appears to be really serious about hydrogen (including for aviation uses) and has unveiled plans to invest in really large fuel cell projects. You can read this nice summary put together by hydrogen aviation entrepreneur Paul Perera.
Last week we mentioned the launch of the ALRIGH2T EU project to test and advance the use of liquid hydrogen in aviation. Now there is a website too.
Other sustainable aviation news
Natilus and MONTE are partnering to bring to the market leasing options for its the future Kona blended-wing-body cargo aircraft.
You can learn more about Natilus and its fascinating blended-wing-body aircraft project by listening to the podcast episode with its founder, Alexey Matyushev.
What else in aviation?
Three recent flight reviews of yet some more airlines and their inflight products:
Turkish Airlines economy class on B787-9, B777-300ER and A321neo
Air Asia, how was it like to fly their A320s on several trips across Asia
Azerbaijan Airlines A320 (operated by GetJet actually)
And talking about Turkish Airlines, the carrier released some traffic numbers for 2023
A close look at Optimares and Unum, a new generation of boutique business class seat makers.
Barcelona-based Volotea posted revenues of nearly €700 million for the year 2023 and it may be preparing an IPO.
Ukrainian airline SkyUp is wet leasing several aircraft to Wizz Air.
Btw, to learn more about how this Ukrainian airline is dealing with the impact of the war, you can check my interview for AeroTime with SkyUp’s CEO.
Last but not least, the Business Breakdowns podcast (recommended) is doing a series of very interesting episodes about major aerospace OEM’s, this one about Embraer with Richard Aboulafia as guest expert is great, as was this earlier one about Boeing with Jon Ostrower.