Electra.aero adds 100 new orders for its eSTOL aircraft after teaming up with flyv to service Europe’s mid-range markets

Electra.aero and flyv, a Ger­man com­pa­ny cre­at­ing On-Demand Air Mobil­i­ty solu­tions, have part­nered to devel­op a cus­tomer-cen­tric air mobil­i­ty solu­tion that will offer trav­ellers quick and cost-effec­tive routes between loca­tions in under­served region­al trav­el mar­kets across Europe.

Under a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU), flyv will be Elec­tra’s air mobil­i­ty ser­vices part­ner in Europe and Elec­tra will be fly­v’s OEM part­ner for region­al air mobil­i­ty ser­vices in Europe and else­where, with a com­mit­ment by flyv to pur­chase of up to 100 Elec­tra eSTOL air­craft.

The agree­ment rais­es Elec­tra’s total pur­chase com­mit­ments to 280 air­craft. The two com­pa­nies will joint­ly explore urban and region­al net­works to be served by flyv and col­lab­o­rate on ele­ments of eSTOL per­for­mance, eco­nom­ics, and pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence as well as joint mar­ket­ing ini­tia­tives.

John S. Lang­ford, Founder and Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer (CEO) of Electra.aero, said: “There is a gap in trans­porta­tion ser­vices today between where ground trans­port is effec­tive and where large trans­port air­craft are pro­vid­ing effi­cient ser­vice. We designed Elec­tra’s eSTOL air­craft to fill that gap, pro­vid­ing a more sus­tain­able trans­port option than cars or tra­di­tion­al air­craft for short and medi­um dis­tance routes up to about 500 miles.

“We are delight­ed to be part­ner­ing with flyv to pair our air­craft tech­nol­o­gy with fly­v’s inno­v­a­tive busi­ness mod­el and flight sched­ul­ing tech­nol­o­gy to bring this trans­porta­tion solu­tion to cus­tomers.”

flyv is a nov­el air­line focused on region­al air mobil­i­ty. In lieu of a tra­di­tion­al hub and spoke net­work, the flyv sched­ul­ing plat­form uses a pro­pri­etary algo­rithm to opti­mise the dai­ly flight sched­ule based on paid book­ings and oper­a­tional con­straints. flyv will pro­vide cus­tomers with a guar­an­teed fixed trav­el time­frame to their des­ti­na­tion at the point of book­ing, and exact itin­er­ary details pri­or to depar­ture.

Pas­sen­gers will fly on Elec­tra’s hybrid eSTOL air­craft, a fixed-wing plane that uses a unique com­bi­na­tion of proven blown lift tech­nol­o­gy, hybrid-elec­tric pow­er, and dis­trib­uted propul­sion to oper­ate on run­ways as small as 100x300ft.

The qui­et, pilot­ed plane deliv­ers sub­stan­tial­ly low­er emis­sions and oper­at­ing costs than con­ven­tion­al air­craft. Bat­ter­ies are recharged mid-flight, elim­i­nat­ing the need for ground charg­ing infra­struc­ture and enabling quick flight turn­around in diverse envi­ron­ments.

The flyv ser­vice will ini­tial­ly oper­ate between air­ports and even­tu­al­ly pro­vide point-to-point inter­ci­ty trav­el, tak­ing full advan­tage of the Elec­tra eSTOL’s abil­i­ty to take off and land in places pre­vi­ous­ly inac­ces­si­ble by flight.

Anton Lutz, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of flyv, said: “Tra­di­tion­al air­lines are focused on capac­i­ty, not on demand. We’re build­ing a new means of trans­port that is demand-dri­ven and cus­tomer cen­tric. We aim to con­nect unserved com­mu­ni­ties to as many oth­er decen­tralised loca­tions as pos­si­ble by deliv­er­ing the fastest means of trans­port from one point to anoth­er at mar­ket val­ue-based prices.

“The eco­nom­ics were a chal­lenge with con­ven­tion­al air­craft. The cost-effec­tive­ness of Elec­tra’s high-per­for­mance eSTOL air­craft is the puz­zle piece that makes the flyv mod­el work. Our part­ner­ship with Elec­tra enables a micro-mobil­i­ty solu­tion that con­nects the uncon­nect­ed into the glob­al avi­a­tion net­work in a sus­tain­able way, cre­at­ing eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties for both com­mu­ni­ties and cus­tomers.”