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Former Airbus Americas chairman Allan McArtor joins Airflow’s Advisory Board

eSTOL air­craft devel­op­er Air­flow has announced the appoint­ment of vet­er­an avi­a­tion exec­u­tive Allan McAr­tor to its advi­so­ry board.

The com­pa­ny, which was found­ed in 2019 by five for­mer mem­bers of the Air­bus Vahana project, is cur­rent­ly build­ing its air­craft which will bring eSTOL capa­bil­i­ties to the mid­dle-mile logis­tics mar­ket.

In in new role, McAr­tor will advise Air­flow as it works to build this solu­tion amid the glob­al surge in e‑commerce. He spent near­ly two decades as Chair­man of Air­bus Amer­i­c­as, over­see­ing all activ­i­ties in the Unit­ed States. Dur­ing his time at the helm, McArtor’s strate­gic vision increased the company’s com­mer­cial avi­a­tion mar­ket share sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

Marc Aus­man, Co-founder and CEO, Air­flow, said: “We are hon­oured to have Allan on board as we enter this­The explo­sive e‑commerce growth of the last five years, which was fur­ther accel­er­at­ed by the glob­al pan­dem­ic, has out­paced exist­ing logis­tics modal­i­ties.

“The time is now for a solu­tion that enables same- and next-day e‑commerce in a low cost, sus­tain­able way. Adding Allan’s exper­tise to our wealth of avi­a­tion knowl­edge makes me more con­fi­dent than ever that Air­flow will be the com­pa­ny that deliv­ers such a solu­tion to glob­al logis­tics and retail busi­ness­es.”

A long­time mem­ber of the senior man­age­ment team at FedEx pri­or to Air­bus, US Pres­i­dent Ronald
Rea­gan appoint­ed McAr­tor as Admin­is­tra­tor of the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA). As admin­is­tra­tor, McArtor’s mod­ern out­look proved to be instru­men­tal in grow­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in air trav­el.

A dec­o­rat­ed Air Force vet­er­an and com­bat fight­er in the Viet­nam War, he is a grad­u­ate of the U.S. Air­force Acad­e­my, where he served as an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Engi­neer­ing Mechan­ics.

Com­ment­ing on his new role, he said: “Marc and the Air­flow team are pur­su­ing an incred­i­ble mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ty with the poten­tial to dis­rupt aer­i­al logis­tics as we know it and enable com­pa­nies to sus­tain­ably meet the demands of today’s cus­tomers.

“I’m proud of, and ener­gised by, the chance to apply my exper­tise as Air­flow devel­ops and brings to mar­ket air­craft and soft­ware sys­tems to evolve the logis­tics indus­try with a new aer­i­al solu­tion.”

Aus­man was a guest on the eVTOL Insights Pod­cast, where he spoke about Air­flow’s vision for the eSTOL mar­ket and how its capa­bil­i­ties can ben­e­fit the grow­ing urban air mobil­i­ty mar­ket.

The com­pa­ny began flight test­ing of its first sub-scale demon­stra­tor in August 2020, and announced it will use VerdeGo Aero’s hybrid-elec­tric pow­er­train for its pro­duc­tion air­craft, after both com­pa­nies announced a part­ner­ship in Decem­ber 2020.

Devel­op­ment of Air­flow’s full-scale ver­sion air­craft began in Jan­u­ary 2021.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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