Wizz Air's NetZero, JetZero's momentum & more (The Allplane Newsletter #187)
Recent Highlights in sustainable Aviation
Three big aviation sustainability stories these last few days:
United Airlines became an investor in JetZero and may order up to 200 aircraft if the project succeeds in building a viable airliner.
This is the second big endorsement this disruptive aircraft program has received this year, after that of Delta Air Line, as that airline’s Chief Sustainability Officer explained on our podcast just a few days ago. JetZero has now two of America’s Big 3 network carriers onboard, plus the also decently sized Alaska Airlines. Quite impressive!
Add to this the interest Natilus is also garnering for its own blended-wing-body aircraft project and makes you wonder whether BWB is the next big thing?
Another quite remarkable story this week is that Boeing and NASA paused work on the X-66 demonstrator to focus, reportedly, on thin-wing research.
And, in Budapest, Wizz Air presented its NetZero 2050 roadmap, with a call to action: more decisive actions must be taken soon or the industry will fail to meet its commitments. Wizz Air’s Corporate & ESG Officer, Yvonne Moynihan shared also a detailed breakdown of how the low-cost carrier plans to get to net zero within the 2050 trime-frame. Check it out here.
New episode of the podcast
Advanced air mobility expert Gary Vermaak has been on the podcast to share some thoughts about the current state of the eVTOL industry, including criticism of the hype that has surrounded AAM tech and business plans from early on.
Advanced Air Mobility
And one of the points that Gary made in the podcast is “how do the proposed eVTOLs compared to existing helicopters?”. Well, this is also a point that Robinson Helicopters’ CEO, David Smith, made in this interesting Linkedin post comparing eVTOLs with its popular R44 model (which could be electrified too!).
He is, of course, an interested party in this debate, of course, but it is still a very relevant point.
Archer announced its plans for the New York City area, where it will work together with partner United Airlines mostly to shuttle people to and from airports.
AutoFlight conducted a pretty impressive dual flight demo in Wuhan to mark the start of work on its new plant in the city.
Lots of things happening at China’s AVIC, which has fly tested its new AR-E3000 eVTOL and obtained type certification for its huge AG600 seaplane (the latter is conventionally powered, but, nevertheless I mention it in this section for simplicity).
Regulatory clouds over the horizon: NYC is restricting helicopter operations to limit noise. eVTOLs are, in principle, not covered by this, but this is, certainly, not encouraging. Lots of eVTOL business cases are based on the regulatory goodwill assumption.
Korean Air is investing in a brand new 1.2 trillion KRW ($860M) tech center in Bucheon, near Seoul, in which advanced air mobility will be one of the key development areas.
Electric Aviation
Electra closed a new $155M funding round.
SiriNor says it has successfully tested an all-electric jet engine. Very intriguing!
Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF)
IATA launched its SAF registry, which tracks which airlines have purchased what and how much SAF, making sure they can take credit for it and preventing double counting. Read more here…
A study by a market research firm assessed the US SAF market could reach almost $7B by 2030.
Interestingly the US government reported that (traditional) jet fuel accounted for the largest share ever of US refineries’ output (around 11%).
Btw, I also stumbled upon this graphic table of the different types of (fossil) fuels used in aviation (with some additional data points in the comments).
Hydrogen Aviation
A helicopter powered by hydrogen fuel-cell? Why not? Joby and its H2FLY subsidiary are testing it for eVTOLs and, it turns out, Enstrom Helicopter, Sabrewing Aircraft and Hydroplane are doing it for light helicopters (h/t to Paul Perera for spotting this one!)
Other sustainable aviation stories
How Red Sea International airport, which serves one of Saudi Arabia’s new mega-projects, is aiming to become the greenest airport in the region. Red Sea International recently conducted the first SAF uplift in Saudi Arabia.
What else in aviation?
The list of new airlines of 2025 got udpated with new Polish charter airline brand Air 001 (the AOC, aircraft and crew are provided by Bulgarian carrier Electra Airways).
The new Gulfstream G800, the longest-ranged private jet in the market, obtained its type certification.
Etihad will add First Class suites and full flat seats on its A321LR aircraft. Looks like, with the longer-ranged single aisle aircraft coming to market, slowly premium cabins are making a comeback to narrowbodies (will be publishing a review soon of my experience with Air Astana’s A321LR biz class!).
CellPoint Digital (an old friend of the podcast) has partnered with Checkout.com to help airlines lower cart abandonment rates.
Airbus doing business in Saudi: sold 10 A330-900neos to Saudia’s low-cost carrier flyadeal and closed a titanium sourcing deal.
The trade war (more of a skirmish so far) between the US and China has prompted the latter to reject any further Boeing deliveries and China Southern to keep (for now) the B787-8s it wanted to get rid of.