Naylam selects Manta ANNTM multi-seater aircraft for regional VIP chauffeur services

Nay­lam, a lux­u­ry VIP Chauf­feur Ser­vice oper­at­ing in four regions world­wide, is to add region­al air mobil­i­ty ser­vices with 10 ANNTM hybrid-elec­tric eV/STOL mul­ti-seater air­crafts from Swiss start-up Man­ta Air­craft Italia.

With 20,000 cus­tomers to date in Eng­land, Sau­di Ara­bia, Egypt and Moroc­co, the two com­pa­nies have entered into an agree­ment to add aer­i­al mobil­i­ty ser­vices, offer­ing cus­tomers point-to-point con­nec­tions with few­er geo­graph­ic bound­aries.

Key fac­tors in the deci­sion are the long-range per­for­mance offered by Man­ta ANNTM in region­al oper­a­tions, low total cost of own­er­ship (TCO) and flex­i­ble use as eVTOL or STOL, as well as the min­i­mal infra­struc­ture require­ments to enable speedy, reli­able and safe con­nec­tiv­i­ty to areas that are dif­fi­cult to reach or negat­ed by road con­ges­tion.

The agree­ment includes the joint devel­op­ment of the spe­cif­ic busi­ness cas­es as well as the launch of oper­a­tions with a fleet of 10 ANNTM air­craft to pro­vide appro­pri­ate ser­vices in each region now being served. Deliv­er­ies are expect­ed to begin in 2026/2027.

Nay­lam chair­man Saeed Kashkash said: “As a fast grow­ing spe­cial­ist in Lux­u­ry VIP Chauf­feur Ser­vice, we con­stant­ly aspire to pio­neer in prod­ucts and ser­vices ful­fill­ing tomorrow’s mobil­i­ty needs.

“The Man­ta Air­craft plat­form has been care­ful­ly select­ed for our oper­a­tions due to its per­for­mance in terms of long range and flex­i­ble con­fig­u­ra­tion of the cab­in lay­out.

“These are deci­sive advan­tages and neces­si­ties in order to offer tai­lor-made solu­tions to our cus­tomers — such as air­port pick­up and trans­fer to a hol­i­day resort sev­er­al hun­dreds of kilo­me­tres away — and hav­ing the air­craft imme­di­ate­ly avail­able for a new pick-up with­out need of long ground stops to recharge bat­ter­ies.”

Man­ta Air­craft CEO Lucas March­esi­ni added: “Fol­low­ing the agree­ment in the util­i­ty ser­vice field with the small­er ANN2 for organ trans­porta­tion, win­ning a first part­ner for the large mul­ti-seater plat­form con­firms the busi­ness poten­tial of the path we took two years ago for region­al and inter-region­al con­nec­tions.

“The range of sev­er­al hun­dred kilo­me­tres, the high cruise speed with low total cost of own­er­ship, and oth­er advan­tages such as the inde­pen­dence from com­plex ground infra­struc­ture, also rep­re­sent a solu­tion with unique advan­tages for Busi­ness Avi­a­tion.”

In May, Man­ta Air­craft and pri­vate med­ical air trans­port com­pa­ny Avionord agreed to field up to 15 hybrid-elec­tric long-range eVTOL air­craft derived from Manta’s ANN plat­form.

In March last year, Man­ta Air­craft announced that it was devel­op­ing its hybrid-elec­tri­cal ver­ti­cal and short take-off and land­ing (HeV/STOL) air­craft, by test­ing a 1:3 scale demon­stra­tor on a final con­fig­u­ra­tion of a pro­to­type expect­ed to start fly­ing in 2022.