Air New Zealand and BETA Technologies team up for ALIA’s first take-off in Tauranga

BETA Tech­nolo­gies’ ALIA air­craft has com­plet­ed its first take-off in New Zealand, as part of its part­ner­ship with Air New Zealand.

In a press released issue late last week, the air­craft was blessed at a sun­rise cer­e­mo­ny in Tau­ran­ga on Fri­day and flew to Hamil­ton Air­port, where it will be based before mov­ing to Welling­ton Air­port for a fur­ther two months in Decem­ber. 

Dur­ing the air­craft’s time in Hamil­ton, Air New Zealand and BETA teams will under­take a pro­gramme of flights in a range of con­di­tions and alti­tudes. Air New Zealand will be intro­duc­ing ALIA to its pilots in Novem­ber. 

In Decem­ber, ALIA will then move to Welling­ton, where it will com­plete flights between Welling­ton and Blenheim. 

Baden Smith, Air New Zealand’s Gen­er­al Man­ag­er — Fleet, Net­works and Strat­e­gy, says the first flight marks an impor­tant mile­stone in the air­line’s Next Gen­er­a­tion Air­craft pro­gramme, and the inno­va­tion jour­ney the air­line is on to under­stand how dif­fer­ent tech­nol­o­gy might work in New Zealand and glob­al­ly in the future.  

He said: “New Zealand has a proud his­to­ry of avi­a­tion inno­va­tion and push­ing for progress, whether it’s Richard Pearse who first opened the skies with fly­ing machines, to the era of TEAL fly­ing boats, through to engi­neers and avi­a­tors who con­nect­ed us to the world. 

“It’s incred­i­bly spe­cial to part­ner with a glob­al inno­va­tor like BETA to ensure New Zealand is a part of shap­ing what the future of flight might look like both here and around the world. We know avi­a­tion will keep chang­ing — it always has.  This is a small, cau­tious step to learn and be part of that change.”

The ALIA CX300 has been leased by Air New Zealand for four months for a tech­ni­cal demon­stra­tor pro­gramme, which enables the air­line, along­side part­ners and reg­u­la­tors, to learn how the air­craft will per­form in New Zealand con­di­tions, and to start pilot and engi­neer­ing famil­iari­sa­tion.  It’s also an oppor­tu­ni­ty for New Zealan­ders to see bat­tery-elec­tric avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy up close. 

BETA Tech­nolo­gies Direc­tor of Flight Oper­a­tions, Chris Caputo, said: “This first flight marks the pow­er­ful inter­sec­tion of prag­mat­ic design and oper­a­tional inno­va­tion.  

“We built the ALIA CX300 on a foun­da­tion of sim­plic­i­ty to ensure a fast, safe, and effi­cient path to com­mer­cial ser­vice.  With this ‘Tech Demon­stra­tor’ col­lab­o­ra­tion, Air New Zealand is not just val­i­dat­ing a sin­gle air­craft — they are cre­at­ing the rig­or­ous oper­a­tional blue­print that will serve as a mod­el for oper­a­tors around the world who are seri­ous about unlock­ing low-cost, sus­tain­able con­nec­tiv­i­ty for their region­al com­mu­ni­ties.” 

Designed for all-weath­er deploy­ment and reli­a­bil­i­ty, BETA’s CTOL air­craft can accom­mo­date two crew mem­bers and up to 5.6 cubic metres of car­go (200 cubic feet) on mis­sions of up to approx­i­mate­ly 398 kilo­me­tres (215 nau­ti­cal miles).

The air­craft has been designed to lever­age exist­ing air­port infra­struc­ture and fly in accor­dance with exist­ing pro­ce­dures to enable rapid adop­tion.