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Bristow unveils greener aviation plans for North East Scotland’s island communities

Accord­ing to STV News, Aberdeen could soon be at the cen­tre for plans for green­er air trav­el, includ­ing hybrid and elec­tric heli­copter flights, and Scotland’s island com­mu­ni­ties and the off­shore sec­tor could be among those set to ben­e­fit from Bristow’s plans for green­er avi­a­tion.

Bris­tow boss­es met with Scot­tish Tory leader Dou­glas Ross to dis­cuss con­cepts for elec­tric heli­copter flights and how Scot­land could lead the way for more envi­ron­men­tal­ly-friend­ly air trav­el by 2030.

Bristow’s exec­u­tive vice-pres­i­dent David Stepanek said: “What we are doing here today is meet­ing with Scot­tish Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to dis­cuss ear­ly con­cepts we have for Scot­land to be one of the first areas to oper­ate these advanced tech­nolo­gies.

“We plan to expand trans­porta­tion sys­tems for the gen­er­al pub­lic, to expand logis­tic oppor­tu­ni­ties for busi­ness and gov­ern­ment, and to bring per­haps car­go and health­care to Scotland’s island com­mu­ni­ties.”

Bris­tow is a major oper­a­tor in the North Sea, tak­ing oil and gas work­ers to plat­forms and also pro­vides search and res­cue ser­vices. It wants to devel­op small­er net zero air­craft which it says will reduce car­bon emis­sions.

Stepanek said get­ting work­ers to Aberdeen before and after their off­shore flights could change in future as new tech­nolo­gies allow them to trav­el to and from the Gran­ite City in net-zero air­craft.

He explained that the tech­nol­o­gy could pow­er net-zero leisure and busi­ness trans­porta­tion between Aberdeen, Dundee, Edin­burgh and Glas­gow. The com­pa­ny claims it could also boost con­nec­tiv­i­ty between the Scot­tish islands and deliv­er more ener­gy-effi­cient ways of car­ry­ing out its car­go and logis­tics oper­a­tions around the world.

He con­tin­ued: “This is a real rev­o­lu­tion­ary oppor­tu­ni­ty and it is going to have to be for lighter, more emer­gency needs. Then we can expand to a region­al mobil­i­ty mod­el, so peo­ple could fly from the remote islands and vil­lages into Edin­burgh, Aberdeen and Glas­gow.”

Wel­com­ing Bristow’s plans, Ross added: “This is not going to be an overnight solu­tion, but going for­ward, the work Bris­tow and oth­ers are doing now is going to reap ben­e­fits for years to come for remote com­mu­ni­ties.”

Last week, Bris­tow Group con­duct­ed a suc­cess­ful ‘qual­i­ta­tive eval­u­a­tion’ of Beta Tech­nolo­gies’ Alia-250 elec­tric-pow­ered air­craft. A year ago, it signed an agree­ment with Beta to pur­chase five Alia-250 with an option for an addi­tion­al 50 air­craft.

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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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