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Surcar Airlines Selects ZeroAvia Engines for Canary Islands

ZeroAvia announced yes­ter­day that it signed an order to pro­vide its ZA600 hydro­gen-elec­tric engines to new oper­a­tor Sur­car Air­lines as it looks to bring green flights to the Canary Islands.

Sur­car plans to use Twin Otter sea­planes retro­fit with the ZA600 pow­er­train on sight­see­ing tours. The new­ly launched air­line is backed by investors includ­ing the Dan­ish car­ri­er Nordic Sea­planes.

Sur­car Air­lines is com­mit­ted to the elec­tri­fi­ca­tion of avi­a­tion to enable zero-emis­sion flights in the Canary Islands by pio­neer­ing cap­ti­vat­ing, green sight­see­ing flights. It will begin oper­a­tions with con­ven­tion­al­ly pow­ered air­craft, then switch to hydro­gen-elec­tric engines to remove in-flight emis­sions.

ZeroAvia is on track for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of the ZA600, 600kW engine for 9–19 seat air­craft over the next two to three years and has a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing with De Hav­il­land of Cana­da, type cer­tifi­cate hold­er of the Twin Otter.

The Euro­pean Union is tar­get­ing 55 per­cent reduc­tion in green­house gas emis­sions by 2030 and Spain’s Nation­al Ener­gy and Cli­mate Plan aims to achieve an entire­ly car­bon-neu­tral trans­port sys­tem by 2050. Accord­ing to a sur­vey con­duct­ed by the Euro­pean Invest­ment Bank, three-quar­ters of Euro­peans plan to fly less fre­quent­ly in the future for envi­ron­men­tal rea­sons.

Hydro­gen-elec­tric engines use hydro­gen in fuel cells to gen­er­ate elec­tric­i­ty, which is then used to pow­er elec­tric motors to turn the aircraft’s pro­pellers. The only emis­sion is water.

ZeroAvia chief cus­tomer offi­cer James Peck said: “The Canaries are a per­fect case for the ear­li­est zero-emis­sion flights, giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty for replac­ing com­bus­tion engines on short island-to-island routes. Devel­op­ing green options for inter-island trav­el will help fur­ther increase the appeal of one of Europe’s most pop­u­lar hol­i­day des­ti­na­tions.”

Sur­car Air­lines founder and CEO Ger­ar­do Morales-Hier­ro added: “Mil­lions vis­it each year to see the incred­i­ble nat­ur­al beau­ty and world her­itage sites here in the Canary Islands. Work­ing with ZeroAvia will help us to deliv­er clean­er flights, while also fos­ter­ing pos­i­tive impacts on the local com­mu­ni­ty and the envi­ron­ment.”

ZeroAvia recent­ly com­plet­ed a pro­gram of 10 test flights of a pro­to­type of its ZA600 for the aboard a Dornier 228 air­craft at its UK base in Kem­ble, Glouces­ter­shire.

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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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