BETA Technologies and Surf Air Mobility Partner on Landmark Demonstration Program; Hawaiian Airlines Supporting Evaluation Activities

Surf Air Mobil­i­ty and BETA Tech­nolo­gies have announced the launch of an elec­tric air­craft demon­stra­tion pro­gram in Hawaiʻi, with Hawai­ian Air­lines, part of Alas­ka Air Group.

Announced today (Thurs­day), the pro­gram will pro­vide sup­port in key areas such as shar­ing insights on Hawaiʻi car­go and pas­sen­ger routes, par­tic­i­pat­ing in fea­si­bil­i­ty assess­ments and sup­port­ing local stake­hold­er and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment activ­i­ties.

The pro­gram brings togeth­er BETA’s elec­tric air­craft tech­nol­o­gy, Surf Air Mobil­i­ty’s region­al air­line exper­tise as Mokulele Air­lines, exist­ing Hawai’i air­port ground infra­struc­ture, and Sur­fOS^TM soft­ware.

Hawai­ian Air­lines, Hawai’i’s largest and longest-serv­ing car­ri­er, serves as a link between the islands, the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States, and inter­na­tion­al des­ti­na­tions across the Pacif­ic. This land­mark demon­stra­tion pro­gram will pro­vide key learn­ings as to how elec­tric air­craft can sup­port future car­go and pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions across Hawaiʻi’s inter­is­land net­work.

Dean­na White, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Surf Air Mobil­i­ty, said: “The avi­a­tion indus­try has talked about elec­tric flight for years. The ques­tion is no longer whether elec­tric air­craft can fly, but rather how they can now be suc­cess­ful­ly inte­grat­ed into com­mer­cial ser­vice.

“The data gen­er­at­ed through this pro­gram will help define the oper­a­tional, eco­nom­ic, and infra­struc­ture require­ments need­ed to advance the next gen­er­a­tion of region­al air trans­porta­tion.”

Hawai­ian Air­lines host­ed the launch event for the tri­al at its Charles I. Elliott Main­te­nance and Car­go Facil­i­ty at Daniel K. Inouye Inter­na­tion­al Air­port in Hon­olu­lu. This is an impor­tant next step toward the deploy­ment of these next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft for real-world region­al air ser­vice.

And begin­ning today, BETA’s ALIA CTOL elec­tric air­craft will con­duct demon­stra­tion flights across Hawaiʻi as part of an approx­i­mate­ly six to eight-week flight cam­paign to eval­u­ate the oper­a­tional, eco­nom­ic and infra­struc­ture require­ments for future elec­tric air­craft oper­a­tions in the state. 

Hawaiʻi’s short inter­is­land route struc­ture and estab­lished demand for region­al air trans­porta­tion make it an ide­al envi­ron­ment to eval­u­ate elec­tric air­craft oper­a­tions at com­mer­cial scale. 

Kyle Clark, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer and Founder of BETA Tech­nolo­gies, said: “Con­nect­ing the Hawai­ian islands with low cost car­go and pas­sen­ger ser­vice is a great appli­ca­tion for elec­tric advanced air mobil­i­ty.  These ear­ly demon­stra­tions will show­case the util­i­ty and eco­nom­ics of the BETA ALIA air­craft first­hand to Surf Air and inform future high cadence, sus­tain­able inter­is­land ser­vice.”

The demon­stra­tion pro­gram rep­re­sents a com­mit­ment to under­stand­ing how new tech­nolo­gies can sus­tain strong trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture with low­er emis­sions and expand­ed ener­gy alter­na­tives with more sta­ble prices than avi­a­tion fuel.

Specif­i­cal­ly, the pro­gram will gen­er­ate data and oper­a­tional learn­ings that help answer some of the most impor­tant ques­tions sur­round­ing the future deploy­ment of elec­tric air­craft, includ­ing:

• Air­craft per­for­mance across Hawaiʻi’s routes, weath­er con­di­tions, and oper­at­ing envi­ron­ment
• Direct oper­at­ing costs and eco­nom­ic fac­tors that will help deter­mine the com­mer­cial per­for­mance of future elec­tric air­craft oper­a­tions
• Main­te­nance require­ments and ser­vic­ing needs asso­ci­at­ed with oper­at­ing elec­tric air­craft in com­mer­cial ser­vice
• Bat­tery per­for­mance, ener­gy con­sump­tion, and oper­at­ing costs across rep­re­sen­ta­tive inter­is­land mis­sions
• Crew train­ing and famil­iar­iza­tion require­ments, ground han­dling pro­ce­dures, safe­ty pro­to­cols, and charg­ing infra­struc­ture needs across the net­work

The data gen­er­at­ed through the pro­gram will sup­port broad­er efforts to advance sus­tain­able avi­a­tion solu­tions across the state. 

Diana Bir­kett Rakow, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer Hawai­ian Air­lines, added: “Hawai­ian Air­lines has a deep and sus­tained respon­si­bil­i­ty not only to pro­vide crit­i­cal air ser­vice to, from and with­in the islands and to car­ry the spir­it of Hawai‘i with us on the jour­ney, we are also dri­ven – with Alas­ka Air­lines – to cul­ti­vate inno­va­tion and sup­port the tech­nolo­gies that will enable a strong and resilient future for avi­a­tion.

“This pro­gram pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty to bet­ter under­stand how Beta’s elec­tri­fied air­craft can sup­port safe and reli­able car­go and pas­sen­ger air ser­vice for short-haul ser­vice while improv­ing the envi­ron­men­tal impact of that fly­ing.”

Surf Air Mobil­i­ty intends to deploy BETA air­craft through­out its Hawaiʻi oper­a­tions for both car­go and pas­sen­ger mis­sions fol­low­ing FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion.

Through its Mokulele Air­lines sub­sidiary, the com­pa­ny oper­ates Hawaiʻi’s largest com­muter air­line net­work by air­ports served and depar­tures, pro­vid­ing an estab­lished oper­a­tional foun­da­tion for future elec­tric air­craft deploy­ment.

As pre­vi­ous­ly announced, Surf Air Mobil­i­ty is prepar­ing to estab­lish a Main­te­nance, Repair, and Over­haul (MRO) facil­i­ty in Hawaiʻi that, once cer­ti­fied, is expect­ed to serve as the fac­to­ry-autho­rized ser­vice cen­ter for BETA air­craft in the state. The facil­i­ty is expect­ed to sup­port long-term elec­tric air­craft oper­a­tions and help build the tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture nec­es­sary to scale com­mer­cial elec­tric avi­a­tion.