Lilium reports momentum on Lilium Jet commercial and test program, as KPMG-driven M&A process continues

Lil­i­um has con­firmed the KPMG-led M&A process aimed at deliv­er­ing the company’s finan­cial restruc­tur­ing con­tin­ues, adding its pro­gram is also build­ing momen­tum towards the first manned flight of the Lil­i­um Jet.

Fol­low­ing Lilium’s insol­ven­cy fil­ing and the start of pre­lim­i­nary insol­ven­cy pro­ceed­ings under self-admin­is­tra­tion, the M&A process for Lil­i­um con­tin­ues as planned. As pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed, KPMG Deal Advi­so­ry team has been man­dat­ed to con­duct an open, fair and trans­par­ent process.

Successful landing gear drop test

Lil­i­um teams con­tin­ue to make progress in air­craft devel­op­ment and test­ing activ­i­ties. The Lil­i­um Jet test cam­paign took an impor­tant step for­ward, with the suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed land­ing gear drop test.

The drop test is an essen­tial part of the safe­ty of flight pro­gram, con­duct­ed in align­ment with EASA and a key require­ment for manned flight of the Lil­i­um Jet. The lat­est nose land­ing gear drop test was per­formed in Novem­ber by MA Group at its facil­i­ties in Naples, Italy, wit­nessed by Lilium’s Com­pli­ance Ver­i­fi­ca­tion Engi­neers, and counts for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion cred­it of the Lil­i­um Jet.

Test­ing of the Lil­i­um Jet’s duct­ed fan tech­nol­o­gy advanced, with sev­er­al engines now built and being test­ed in par­al­lel. Lil­i­um engines have already accu­mu­lat­ed sev­er­al hours of cruise speed run­time, with around 10,000 data points being col­lect­ed per sec­ond.

Lil­i­um teams have also con­duct­ed test­ing of the propul­sion vec­tor­ing sys­tem, includ­ing the ser­vo actu­a­tor and ser­vo con­trol unit, as well as ini­tial in-house tri­als of an engine blade detach­ment event, using a rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lil­i­um Jet propul­sion mount­ing sys­tem and e‑motor.

EASA recent­ly car­ried out its sec­ond reg­u­lar Lil­i­um DOA audit which again con­firmed that the Lil­i­um orga­ni­za­tion is work­ing in full com­pli­ance with EASA reg­u­la­tions.

Lilium begins roll-out of flight operations software

Lilium’s flight test team is cur­rent­ly work­ing with UK avi­a­tion soft­ware spe­cial­ist myairops to cus­tomize its soft­ware solu­tion towards meet­ing Lilium’s upcom­ing flight test needs.

A soft­ware solu­tion will now be imple­ment­ed for man­age­ment of flight and air­craft main­te­nance oper­a­tions – includ­ing plan­ning, sched­ul­ing, and track­ing of flights, work order plan­ning and main­te­nance event sched­ul­ing.

Lil­i­um start­ed col­lab­o­rat­ing with myairops in 2022, ini­tial­ly to sup­port staff ros­ter­ing, train­ing man­age­ment, and flight hour track­ing for Lilium’s Phoenix tech­nol­o­gy demon­stra­tor and flight sim­u­la­tors. The extend­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion with myairops enables Lil­i­um to offer flight soft­ware cus­tomized for elec­tric air mobil­i­ty direct­ly to Lil­i­um Jet pur­chasers.

Pre­lim­i­nary insol­ven­cy pro­ceed­ings under self-admin­is­tra­tion are court-ordered restruc­tur­ing pro­ceed­ings aimed at pre­serv­ing the busi­ness. The man­age­ment remains in charge and leads the busi­ness through the pro­ceed­ings, sup­port­ed by restruc­tur­ing experts.

Additional orders placed

The Ambi­tious Group (A.A.M.G), an exec­u­tive eVTOL oper­a­tor plan­ning ini­tial oper­a­tions out of Mar­bel­la and Ams­ter­dam, Nether­lands, has entered into a bind­ing sales agree­ment with Lil­i­um for the pur­chase of eight Lil­i­um Jets, with an option to acquire an addi­tion­al six air­craft.

The pur­chase fol­lows an ini­tial Let­ter of Intent signed in March 2024 and recon­firms The Ambi­tious Group’s plans to pro­vide elec­tric air char­ter ser­vices, ini­tial­ly tar­get­ing mar­kets in South­ern Spain, Moroc­co and the Benelux region.

In a sec­ond phase, the plan is to imple­ment char­ter ser­vices between the ABC Islands — Aru­ba, Bonaire, and Curaçao – in The Caribbean. The sign­ing took place at Lilium’s head­quar­ters in Gaut­ing, near Munich, and was for­mal­ized by Robert Kamp, CEO of The Ambi­tious Group, and Klaus Roewe, CEO of Lil­i­um. Imple­men­ta­tion of the order is sub­ject to Lilium’s suc­cess­ful return to sol­ven­cy.

108 firm orders and reser­va­tions

Lilium’s order pipeline now totals 108 firm orders and reser­va­tions, 82 options, and near­ly 600 air­craft under MOU.

In con­junc­tion with the start of Lilium’s pre­lim­i­nary insol­ven­cy pro­ceed­ings, ASL Group has can­celed its reser­va­tion of six Lil­i­um Jet deliv­er­ies. The two par­ties intend to reen­gage fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion of Lilium’s finan­cial restruc­tur­ing.