Catching up on sustainable aviation
This is the first sustainable aviation round-up after a rather long summer hiatus, which has included the Farnborough Air Show week no less!
So, it's been really hard to pick from all the developments which have been taking place over the last few weeks.
Some of the bigger stories have received ample coverage, even outside the industry media, such as Heart Aerospace's much awaited first flight, the acquisition of Wisk and two other Boeing subsidiaries by Archer, and the expected reform of the EU's ETS framework
The latter regulatory system, by the way, has, besides the main carbon emissions-focused aspects, some interesting and somehow less reported elements concerning aviation's electrification and the incentives regime to manage non-carbon emissions
So I decided to focus on other developments, which, perhaps, have been flying more under the radar.
I am not sure this is the case of Airbus' new "Flying Lab", an ex-Malaysia Airlines A380, which will be used as a test bank for new propulsion technologies. But it was just too eye-catching to leave it out!
GE Aerospace, btw, has also its own flying lab and this summer it has been busy testing hybrid-electric flight at high altitudes, in collaboration with NASA, Boeing and BETA Technologies.
The hybrid-electric space is gaining some favour with investors, actually.
Ampaire closed a new $19M funding round which included the participation of IAGi. Interestingly it appears that the venture capital arm of the airline group is particularly interested in the applications for Auxiliar Power Units (APUs)
The electrification of the aircraft's non-propulsive systems is also the focus of Airbus' Project LEIA
Another startup in this space is Electra, a regular in this newsletter, which tested its prototype at Philadelphia international airport (quite important to validate its regional feeder concept)
Electra is also eyeing Helsinki to Tallinn as a potential future market (I did once this journey in an ultra-fast ferry and it, indeed, seems like a route ripe for a switch to the air)
But the two key news about Electra this summer is its choice of powertrain (Safran) and the selection of its future production site (in Ohio)
Electra's CTO, Marc Ausman (who was a guest of the podcast before selling his startup tp Electra) also made an interesting point about the durability of batteries in a hybrid-electric system compared to those of a pure electric one (btw, here is the article here is referring to)
Also filed under the "promising startup" category, JetZero has raised a fresh $100M round through a secured loan rather than equity, though
JetZero racked up more pre-orders at Farnborough from airlines like Gulf Air and JAL
The advanced air mobility front has also seen some movements:
EVE completed its first transition flight (always a major achievement!)
Vertical Aerospace raised some more money
Archer and Anduril unveil a new cargo drone as well
And Regent closed a $240M Series B round
Some less known eVTOL starts have also had news:
India's ePlane sign a deal to potentially equip the country's emergency services with its eVTOL
In the meantime, FlyNow (whose founder was on the podcast as well) has fully moved from Austria to Saudi Arabia, a move that is not surprising in the least because the Middle Eastern kingdom had always been the focus market for the company
And Czech eVTOL developer Zuri unveiled a new cargo drone concept
Several electric aviation startups that have been kind of on and off the radar announced also some interesting novelties:
I hadn't heard much about clean flight pioneer and podcast guest Wright Electric, but it turns out is doing some projects for the US military
Belgian-American startup Cosmic Aerospace Cosmic has unveiled an all-electric aircraft which it expects to certify under MOSAIC rules
MD Aircraft is getting interest from Scandinavia
The hydrogen aviation space, however, continues to face quite a bit of turmoil, as the difficulties of developing this new technology propulsion start to become apparent.
Australian startup Stralis has shut down as it didn't have enough funding to continue its test program
Blue Spirit has delayed its first flight to early 2027
And Christine Ourmières-Widener has been confirmed as CEO of ZeroAvia (she had been acting CEO already for a few months)
There is, however, this other hydrogen aviation startup I must confess I didn't know about, Celsius, which is reportedly preparing for its first test flight!
In another order of things, here is another interesting business pivot. Similarly to what hypersonic aircraft developer Hermeus did earlier this year, Astromechanica (check our podcast episode with its founder) will be taking used jet engines from United Airlines aircraft and re-engineering them to serve as ground power generators!
Last but not least, a round-up of the SAF scene:
The UK has set up a Revenue Certainty Mechanism (RCM) for SAF
ETFuels has already picked up a UK site for its future SAF plant
Air Canada and Airbus will invest in scaling up domestic SAF production in Canada through a collaboration agreement that is similar (although smaller in scale) to the one the European aircraft maker has in Australia with Qantas
And American Airlines flight used eSAF (from Infinium) for the first time
And another US eSAF producer closed a significant round
SAF is growing in Latin America too
By the way, there were two new podcast episodes in July:
We did an episode about airport electrification, with Dr. Stefan Breunig of Albatross
And another one with IATA's Chief Economist and VP Sustainability Marie Owens Thomsen, in which she did not mince her words about the current international regulatory framework, on emissions, SAF and other matters.
And I conducted some interviews with business leaders from across the industry
The CEO of Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, Firoz Tarapore
LATAM's Chief Experience Officer, Paulo Miranda
The CEO of Air NZ, Nikhil Ravishankar
