Addison Ferrell is Director, Infrastructure and Head of Americas at Skyports, one of the world’s leading vertiport developers. Vertiports will be an essential element of the upcoming advanced air mobility revolution. Will they be more like airports or like metro stations? What sort of experience can we expect to have there are travellers? What are the barriers of entry in this sector? These are all questions I wanted to ask an expert like Addison, because there is still so much of the advanced a...
Aug 17, 2023
The seaplane industry could not remain off trend. Electrification is driving a wave of innovation in aviation and George Alafinov , the scion of a family of seaplane designers, is making sure it does not skip one of the oldest branches of the industry. True, seaplanes may have fallen out of fashion in the post-war years. The advent of the jet era, the availability of airports on land and the maintenance requirements of aircraft operating in salty water led to this category of aircraft being side...
Jul 25, 2023
Marc Piette is the founder and CEO of Xwing, a California-based company that is developing a system that allows aircraft to fly fully autonomously, from gate to gate without human intervention. This may sounds like science-fiction to some, but it is certainly not. Already back in 2021, Xwing demonstrated this technology by successfully completing one of such autonomous flights. This is a potentially disruptive technology that I was very curious to learn more about, so I invited Marc to the podca...
Jul 05, 2023
Things we talk about in this episode: Jenny’s professional background What is Cranfield Aerospace Solutions What is the relationship between Cranfield Aerospace Solutions and Cranfield University Why Cranfield Aerospace Solutions has pivoted towards the search for sustainable technologies in aviation The Britten-Norman deal Project Fresson The role of Cranfield Aerospace Solutions in the UK’s sustainable aviation ecosystem
Jun 28, 2023
As used as I am in reviewing all sorts of innovative ideas in aviation, the concept that Magpie Aviation presented a few weeks ago really caught my eye. Is this even possible? This was my first reaction when learning about the system to get an electric aircraft to tow, mid-air, a passenger aircraft to its destination that the guys at Magpie have devised. Fortunately, I had met Magpie’s Damon Vander Lind and Andy Goessling, CEO and CTO of Magpie, respectively, at an event in Nice just a few days ...
Jun 14, 2023
This year’s edition of EBACE was all about sustainability, or at least that’s what the program of activities focused on. The executive aviation industry is well aware of how it is being increasingly perceived by the public opinion in a context of climate alarm and, believe it or not, it is taking the matter very seriously. Interestingly, and perhaps counterintuitively, there seem to be strong synergies with another segment of the aviation industry that is part of the solution: the sustainable fl...
Jun 03, 2023
TNMT is the research and analysis arm of Lufthansa Innovation Hub, which is, in turn, the innovation arm of the large German airline group. If you are into aviation tech, TNMT’s newsletter is a must. I have been a subscriber for quite some time and have even collaborated, through AeroTime, in one of its editions. This is why I had long wanted to invite TNMT’s head of research, Ivan Terekhov, here to the podcast, to ask him about the many interesting tech developments that are transforming aviati...
May 14, 2023
Mikhail Kokorich is a serial entrepreneur operating at the technology frontier of aerospace. Following a string of successful business launches in areas such as satellite technology, his latest venture, Swiss-based Destinus is developing an hypersonic aircraft capable of linking different continents at speeds five times faster than sound. This may sound outlandish, but there is currently a wave of startups that taking advantages of advances in materials science and renewed interest among the wor...
Apr 11, 2023
When it comes to the passenger experience and the product most airlines offer to their passengers, Jeff O’Neill has pretty strong opinions. Not for nothing, Jeff, who was already on this podcast back in 2020, is the founder of Zephyr Aircraft Seat and has been patiently working to bring to fruition what he sees as the future of the Premium Economy class. The Zephyr seat is as revolutionary as it looks: a stacked seat concept that allows passengers to lay down flat to sleep without having to pay ...
Mar 28, 2023
Omer Bar-Yohay is the president of AutoFlight. AutoFlight is as close as it gets in the eVTOL world to a global company: founded and headquartered in China, where it has its manufacturing facility, its design and development team and some of its major investors are located in Germany and its operational testing grounds in the California. Although, perhaps it hasn’t got, so far, as much press as other major eVTOL players, AutoFlight has been collecting some notable successes: in February 2023, Au...
Mar 21, 2023
Hemant Mistry, our guest today, is the director of energy transition at the world’s top airline industry organisation, IATA, which gathers nearly 300 airlines from all over the world. With Hemant we review the strategy of priorities that IATA has set for its members and the industry’s position in matters such as the sustainable fuel mandates being introduced, for example, by the European Union. But IATA’s task is not all about coordination among its members and lobbying, there are also a number ...
Mar 14, 2023
Ivor von Dartel left the comfort and security of a corporate job at Airbus to develop an all-electric battery-powered aircraft. Munich-based Vaeridion is one of the most promising players in the emerging field of electric aviation. The 9-seater, 500km-range electric aircraft that Ivor’s team is working on is designed to shuttle travellers, carbon-free, across the sort of short to medium range distances that nowadays are often covered by road transport. Launching a new aircraft from scratch is, o...
Mar 07, 2023
Gregory Davis heads one of the most talked-about startups of the electric aviation era. In fact, Eviation was already cool when almost no one was talking about electric aircraft and aviation sustainability. The super sleek lines of its Alice commuter aircraft are due to the fact that this truly clean-sheet aircraft has been designed around the batteries, making a truly electric-native aircraft. in this episode of the podcast we review with Gregory the latest developments since he took the reigns...
Feb 12, 2023
This is not the first time that Morell Westermann visits this podcast. Those of you that were around in 2020, when we were just taking off, might remember how Morell Westermann and Malik Aziz explained here their record-setting electric flight across the whole length of Germany. Well, Morell is back at record setting, this time, at aeroFriedrichshafen, in Southern Germany. Europe’s largest general aviation show, will have a special opening act with the arrival of what is intended to be the large...
Feb 04, 2023
If you are into sustainable aviation, chances are that you have come across ZeroAvia some way or another. This fast growing startup, which is developing hydrogen fuel-cell powertrains for aircraft, has been making headlines pretty much every other week. From its Californian roots, ZeroAvia is now operating across five separate locations in the US and the UK and has raised funds from some of the most prominent names in the global business community, including the likes of Amazon, Shell, Bill Gate...
Jan 20, 2023
JetBlue Ventures is one of the earliest and most prolific early stage investors in the aviation and travel technology space. It is now common for many large airlines to have their own in-house venture arm, but when it launched, back in 2016, JetBlue Ventures was one of the pioneers in this space, together with Hangar51 (of the IAG Group) and Cockpit Innovation (of El Al). Fast forward to today and JetBlue Ventures is invested in more than 40 companies, ranging from advanced air mobility to hospi...
Dec 07, 2022
Patrick Edmond is the managing director of Altair Advisory, a consultancy firm providing expertise and advice to the commercial aviation industry. Patrick has a long and broad experience that encompasses airlines, airports, aircraft leasing, aviation tech and, of course, consulting services, which gives him a great vantage point on the industry. I had been following Patrick for quite some time, since he is an avid commentator with numerous publications on social media and other platforms, coveri...
Dec 01, 2022
LanzaJet is the sustainable aviation fuel spin-off of the almost eponymous LanzaTech, an American firm that is developing and deploying technologies to turn different sorts of feedstock and waste, into biofuels. Of the different processes and pathways available to make sustainable aviation fuel, LanzaJet is focusing on the Alcohol-to-Jet one, which uses ethanol previously produced from organic feedstocks. LanzaJet’s technology has caught the eye of some of the most prominent corporate players. I...
Nov 18, 2022
Michael Barnard is one of the most outspoken experts in the field of renewable energy and decarbonization technologies and, as it couldn’t be otherwise, has also had a close look at the different projects that are claiming to take aviation towards the path of sustainability. In this long and gripping conversation, Michael doesn’t mince words when talking about some of the trends and themes that are sweeping through the world of aviation, from eVTOLs to hydrogen. Michael has also taken the bold s...
Nov 11, 2022
Today’s podcast guest is leading a firm that is truly unique in the aviation world. Tom Grundy, CEO of Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) will possibly chastise me for talking about the airship comeback. The Airlander, the world’s largest aircraft by some measures, may look, from the outside, like one of those classical airships of the pre-War era, however, as listeners of this episode shall soon learn, it presents some notable differences as well, the result of almost a century of progress in aerospace ...
Oct 29, 2022
Oct 23, 2022
We are living through an almost unprecedented wave of aerospace innovation. From eVTOLs to new propulsion technologies, the world is awash with new projects, designs and concepts. How many of them will pass the certification process? This is a question that I’ve been pondering for a while and this is the reason I welcomed the chance to do this episode in partnership with AFuzion, a leading boutique consultancy firm that helps aerospace companies get their certification process right. Few people ...
Oct 18, 2022
Alon’s career spans several decades in, both, military and civilian aviation. He’s been at the helm of all sorts of aircraft, from F-16s to the Dreamliners, which he currently flies for Israeli airline El Al. But, while Alon’s flying career could surely provide material for several episodes, the reason he’s here today on the podcast is the Simplifly App, a tool he and his partners have developed in order to help people fight their fear of flying. A surprisingly large number of people suffer fear...
Oct 11, 2022
The recent covid pandemic has exposed how fragile the aviation and, more generally, the travel sector are to external shocks. What’s more, things get particularly messy when each country starts implementing its own measures and health requirements. The confusion and uncertainty resulting from this maze of regulations is often more damaging than the measures themselves. This is why some in the aviation industry have been pushing for an international framework that provides clarity and predictabil...
Sep 26, 2022
When British airline Flybe folded during the covid pandemic, Josef Mouris had the chance to devote 100% of his energies to the project that had been long time in his mind. This former Dash Q400 pilot founded Electron, an electric flight startup. Although at first Josef was looking at the actual flying-operational part of the business, he soon realized that the hardware wasn’t quite there yet. So, Electron pivoted to developing its own fully electric aircraft. The idea is that these light powered...
Sep 19, 2022
Addison Schonland is the co-founder and manager of AirInsight, a digital platform that tracks the commercial aviation industry through a combination of media content and analytical tools. Addison is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about the state of the aviation industry and he was also one of the very first guests of this podcast when I was just getting it off the ground. It’s been a while since then and quite a lot has happened in the world, so I thought it was a good idea to call ...
Sep 15, 2022
Felipe Varon started thinking about drones more than 20 years ago when it was far from being a fashionable topic. A lot has changed since then and nowadays there is no shortage of startups working in the field of advanced air mobility (AAM). While there is no shortage of startups designing new cool eVTOL aircraft, Varon, the firm that Felipe leads, is looking at the broader picture. In its holistic approach, Varon aims to build the value chain that should allow eVTOLs to take off in Latin Americ...
Aug 27, 2022
In addition to being a long-time aviation executive and entrepreneur, Paul Perera is, perhaps, one of the most prolific experts out there when it comes to disseminating interesting insights and relevant stories in the domain of aviation sustainability. Paul is active in the field of hydrogen aviation through, Fluxart, a UK-based startup he co-founded to develop cryogenic motor technology which can boost the performance of hydrogen-powered propulsion systems. On today’s episode Paul will share so...
Aug 22, 2022
In the fourth and last episode of this airlines and software cycle, produced in collaboration with SITA for Aircraft, we present you a comprehensive, holistic view of how digital, data-driven tools have become increasingly important to get further efficiency improvements out of airline operations. Sometimes it’s a relatively small thing, such as not having to carry several kilograms of paper in a flight bag, sometimes it’s truly sophisticated stuff, such as predicting the presence of ice crystal...
Jul 12, 2022
Simon I. Briceno is the chief commercial officer at Jaunt Air Mobility, an interesting advanced air mobility startup with a rather unique approach: a hybrid eVTOL with fixed wing and a rotorcraft. Why this unusual configuration? Simon shares some details about the advantages of this approach and how Jaunt’s engineers aim to get the best of both worlds, fixed wing and helicopters, and 100% electric! Tune in to learn more about this fascinating project that aims to launch in North America as early...
Jul 05, 2022
