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Air New Zealand “Accelerates Toward Electric Aircraft Operations, Increases Order and Collaboration with BETA Technologies”

Air New Zealand (ANZ) has expand­ed its com­mer­cial part­ner­ship with U.S‑based eVTOL devel­op­er and man­u­fac­tur­er, BETA Tech­nolo­gies, adding an elec­tric Tech­ni­cal Demon­stra­tor air­craft and sev­er­al charg­ing solu­tions to its pre­vi­ous order, reports a press release. 

This marks anoth­er sig­nif­i­cant step in Air New Zealand’s plans “to oper­a­tionalise BETA’s next-gen­er­a­tion ALIA CTOL air­craft in com­mer­cial routes begin­ning in 2026,” explains the release.

ANZ is to receive an ALIA CTOL from BETA in 2025, for six months of ear­ly famil­iari­sa­tion prac­tices includ­ing the pilot and main­te­nance teams, as well as route plan­ning, oper­a­tions, and ground sup­port teams. 

The release con­tin­ues, “The com­pa­ny has also added BETA charg­ers to its order, includ­ing one Charge Cube for per­ma­nent instal­la­tion and sev­er­al of BETA’s mobile MiniCube charg­ers to expand the net­work foot­print in New Zealand.This addi­tion­al pur­chase is the lat­est in a series of steps Air New Zealand has tak­en toward mak­ing its oper­a­tions more sus­tain­able and cost-effec­tive.” 

Kiri Han­nifin, ANZ’s Chief Cor­po­rate Affairs and Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Office, remarked, “We’re so thrilled to be mov­ing into the next gen­er­a­tion of aviation.This future is one where we can ful­fil our pur­pose to con­nect New Zealan­ders, but with a much low­er emis­sions to help meet our 2050 net zero car­bon emis­sions tar­get.”

She con­tin­ued, “A num­ber of our Air New Zealand pilots will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to learn to oper­ate the air­craft along­side BETA pilots. This not only allows them to gain expe­ri­ence on a com­plete­ly new type of air­craft, but it will also guide the airline’s work to devel­op the process­es and poli­cies required to oper­ate the air­craft com­mer­cial­ly in 2026.”

Fol­low­ing “an 18-month peri­od of due dili­gence and a down-selec­tion process from 30 OEMs,” ANZ announced last year that BETA’s ALIA CTOL would be its first pur­chase of a next gen­er­a­tion air­craft. 

Since, the air­line has:-

: Decid­ed on an ini­tial mis­sion – car­ry­ing car­go for the NZ Post.

: Iden­ti­fied a route fly­ing between Welling­ton and Blenheim between the North & South Islands.

: Invest­ed in the remain­ing key ele­ments of the AAM ecosys­tem, includ­ing charg­ing infra­struc­ture and train­ing assets.  

Kyle Clark, BETA’s Founder and CEO, com­ment­ed, “We have been very impressed with the prac­ti­cal, oper­a­tions-focused approach Air New Zealand has tak­en from the very begin­ning of this process. They have leaned all the way in, work­ing with us step by step to set sol­id foun­da­tions across every part of the ecosys­tem to ensure suc­cess­ful entry into ser­vice.”

He added, “The Tech Demon­stra­tor and charg­ers will allow us to col­lect data and refine the oper­a­tions so Air New Zealand can hit the ground run­ning with low-cost elec­tric ser­vice upon deliv­ery of their first cer­ti­fied air­craft.”

With the ear­ly access to the air­craft and charg­ing infra­struc­ture being deliv­ered in 2025, the ANZ team will be able “to con­duct crit­i­cal base­line train­ing, such as flight train­ing and abnor­mal pro­ce­dures famil­iari­sa­tion, and can begin longer-term eval­u­a­tions of things like com­mer­cial ser­vice route selec­tion,” says the release. 

It goes on, “Begin­ning actu­al flight oper­a­tions will allow local res­i­dents and gov­ern­ment lead­ers alike to gain famil­iar­i­ty and com­fort with the qui­et tech­nol­o­gy and what it will bring to New Zealand in terms of eco­nom­ic and sus­tain­abil­i­ty goals.” 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.beta.team/

https://www.airnewzealand.eu

(Top image: Kyle Clark, Kiri Han­nifin, David Mor­gan (ANZ))

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