VoltAero begins construction of final assembly facility at Rochefort Airport in France

VoltAero marked anoth­er impor­tant step toward the full-scale pro­duc­tion of its Cas­sio elec­tric-hybrid air­craft fam­i­ly with ground­break­ing for a final assem­bly line at Rochefort Air­port in the Char­ente-Mar­itime depart­ment of France’s Nou­velle-Aquitaine region.

The 2,400 square metre facil­i­ty will serve as the build-up site and deliv­ery cen­tre for VoltAero’s all-new prod­uct line of Cas­sio air­craft, and posi­tions VoltAero at a strate­gic loca­tion in south­west France.

The plan incor­po­rates the poten­tial for VoltAero’s future growth of up to 7,400 square metres, as well as enabling sup­pli­ers and ser­vice providers to devel­op their own pres­ence.

In addi­tion to meet­ing or exceed­ing the require­ments of France’s RT 2005 reg­u­la­tions for ener­gy-effi­cient build­ings, the project man­age­ment team went fur­ther with fea­tures that include a mixed concrete/wood struc­tur­al design and the use of wood­en floors where appro­pri­ate, along with rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing and pho­to­volta­ic pan­els for elec­tri­cal pow­er.

With the facility’s com­ple­tion tar­get­ed for August 2024, it will incor­po­rate the final assem­bly line, a work­shop, logis­tics area and the design engi­neer­ing offices. VoltAero antic­i­pates pro­duc­ing approx­i­mate­ly 150 air­craft per year.

“VoltAero is once again deliv­er­ing on its promise to bring a clean-sheet design aero­plane to mar­ket for safe, qui­et, effi­cient and eco-friend­ly flight using elec­tric-hybrid propul­sion,” said Jean Bot­ti, VoltAero’s CEO.

Alain Rous­set, pres­i­dent of the Nou­velle-Aquitaine Region, added: “Nou­velle-Aquitaine was one of the first part­ners for Jean Bot­ti and his teams as they began devel­op­ing their hybrid-elec­tric air­craft con­cept, and we look for­ward to see­ing Cas­sio aero­planes as they are deliv­ered from the final assem­bly line.”

Project man­age­ment for the con­struc­tion of VoltAero’s final assem­bly facil­i­ty at Rochefort Air­port is the respon­si­bil­i­ty of a region­al asso­ci­a­tion of air­ports called the Syn­di­cat Mixte des Aéro­ports de La Rochelle — Ile de Ré et Rochefort — Char­ente-Mar­itime.

“VoltAero rep­re­sents the type of high­ly inno­v­a­tive com­pa­nies that we are look­ing to sup­port at Rochefort Air­port in devel­op­ing the avi­a­tion industry’s future,” con­tin­ued Gérard Pons, Pres­i­dent of the Syn­di­cat Mixte des Aéro­ports de La Rochelle — Ile de Ré et Rochefort — Char­ente-Mar­itime.

Advan­tages of the indus­tri­al site for VoltAero include its direct access to Rochefort Airport’s exist­ing 2,280 metre long by 45 metre wide run­way, as well as the avail­abil­i­ty of the region’s road, rail and sea trans­porta­tion links.

Last week, VoltAero flew the pro­pri­etary elec­tric-hybrid pow­er­train for its Cas­sio S test­bed aero­plane with 100% sus­tain­able fuel pro­vid­ed by Total­En­er­gies.

VoltAero claims world’s first elec­tric-hybrid air­craft flight with 100% sus­tain­able fuel