Avolon CEO Dómhnal Slattery becomes Non-Executive Chairman of Vertical Aerospace’s board of Directors

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has announced the appoint­ment of avi­a­tion indus­try vet­er­an Dómh­nal Slat­tery as Non-Exec­u­tive Chair­man of Vertical’s board of direc­tors.

Dómh­nal — who is cur­rent­ly found­ing CEO of Avolon, the world’s sec­ond largest air­craft leas­ing com­pa­ny — suc­ceeds Stephen Fitz­patrick as chair­man, who has held the com­bined role of Chair­man & CEO since Ver­ti­cal was list­ed on the New York Stock Exchange in Decem­ber 2021.

Slat­tery said: “Ver­ti­cal is in the van­guard of inno­va­tion in the glob­al avi­a­tion indus­try, and I am delight­ed to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to play a cen­tral role in its growth and devel­op­ment.

“Over the past five years, Stephen has assem­bled an unri­valled team with a vision to rev­o­lu­tionise avi­a­tion through zero emis­sions air trav­el. I am excit­ed to have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to deliv­er that vision and bring to mar­ket the VX4, an air­craft that will mate­ri­al­ly change the face of the trans­porta­tion sec­tor glob­al­ly as we tran­si­tion towards a net zero econ­o­my.”

Dómh­nal has more than 30 years’ expe­ri­ence in the glob­al avi­a­tion finance indus­try and in a press release detail­ing the news, Ver­ti­cal says Dómh­nal brings ‘a unique and diverse skillset to the Ver­ti­cal Board, and the expe­ri­ence to guide the busi­ness through the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of its zero oper­at­ing emis­sions eVTOL air­craft, the VX4’.

Dómh­nal Slat­tery remains CEO of Avolon, which is also a cus­tomer of, and an investor in, Ver­ti­cal.

Fitz­patrick, who is also Ver­ti­cal’s founder, added: “Dómh­nal is an out­stand­ing appoint­ment for Ver­ti­cal; his proven track record over the last 30 years in avi­a­tion finance is unri­valled and he brings senior lev­el rela­tion­ships with every major organ­i­sa­tion across the glob­al avi­a­tion indus­try.

“Dómhnal’s vision for zero emis­sions flight will be invalu­able for the Ver­ti­cal Board and its share­hold­ers, and his appoint­ment val­i­dates our ambi­tion to lead the eVTOL sec­tor glob­al­ly.”

Fol­low­ing these appoint­ments, the Ver­ti­cal Board will com­prise: Dómh­nal Slat­tery as Non-Exec­u­tive Chair­man; inde­pen­dent Non-Exec­u­tive Direc­tors Kathy Cas­sidy and Gur Kim­chi; Non-Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Mar­cus Waley-Cohen; and Exec­u­tive Direc­tors Stephen Fitz­patrick (Founder & CEO), Vin­cent Casey (CFO) and Michael Cer­ven­ka (Pres­i­dent).

Ver­ti­cal has what it believes to be the largest con­di­tion­al pre-order book (by val­ue) in the eVTOL air­craft indus­try, with up to 1,350 air­craft worth $5.4 bil­lion from Amer­i­can Air­lines, Avolon, Bris­tow and Ibero­jet, includ­ing pre-order options from Vir­gin Atlantic and Marubeni, and through Avolon’s place­ments, air­lines JAL and Gol.

Ver­ti­cal expects its air­craft, the VX4, to be cer­ti­fied by the Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Author­i­ty (EASA), which it believes to be the high­est glob­al cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dard. Con­se­quent­ly, Ver­ti­cal expects the VX4 will be in com­mer­cial oper­a­tion by the mid-2020s.