DUBAI AIRSHOW 2025: BETA Technologies and e‑Smart Group Sign Firm Order For Five ALIA CTOL Aircraft, With Purchase Rights For 15 More

e‑Smart Group has ordered five of BETA Tech­nolo­gies’ elec­tric ALIA CTOL air­craft, with the agree­ment to include pur­chase rights for 15 more.

Announced today (Tues­day), the news fur­thers BETA’s inter­na­tion­al expan­sion and strength­ens e‑Smart’s com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able logis­tics solu­tions across Europe, the UK and UAE.

e‑Smart Group, par­ent of the new all-elec­tric oper­a­tor e‑Smart Avia, plans to use the air­craft to serve express, e‑commerce and high val­ue ver­ti­cals, such as med­ical, life sci­ence and air­craft on the ground (AOG) spares.

Addi­tion­al­ly, e‑Smart Group — which has a spe­cial­ized exper­tise in serv­ing its exist­ing air­line and logis­tics clients — views the addi­tion of BETA’s tech­nol­o­gy as a means to allow those clients to expand their prod­uct port­fo­lios with greater speed and reli­a­bil­i­ty than pre­vi­ous­ly pos­si­ble.

Simon Newitt, Head of Glob­al Sales at BETA Tech­nolo­gies, said: “Our agree­ment with e‑Smart Group marks an excit­ing step in BETA’s glob­al expan­sion. e‑Smart deliv­ers on a wide-rang­ing, high-val­ue mis­sion set,
from car­go and e‑commerce to crit­i­cal med­ical goods, which ALIA is unique­ly designed to sup­port.

“We look for­ward to part­ner­ing to bring next-gen­er­a­tion logis­tics and elec­tric avi­a­tion to sev­er­al new ter­ri­to­ries, and with it a clean, reli­able, low-cost oper­a­tion.”

BETA’s ALIA CTOL is designed for region­al trans­port, with a 560 kilo (1,250-pound) pay­load, and 5.6 cubic
meter cab­in inte­ri­or for opti­mized effi­cien­cy, cost, and qui­et, low-emis­sion oper­a­tion.

Its per­for­mance and low­er oper­at­ing costs make it high­ly suit­ed for high-fre­quen­cy routes con­nect­ing major hubs to sec­ondary mar­kets — a key focus for e‑Smart Group as it launch­es ser­vice in 2027. BETA also man­u­fac­tures elec­tric infra­struc­ture to sup­port the air­craft oper­a­tions.

The com­pa­ny is deploy­ing an inter­na­tion­al net­work, with more than 50 sites online in the U.S. as of August 31, 2025, and addi­tion­al loca­tions in Cana­da. Last week, BETA announced the expan­sion of this net­work to Abu Dhabi, with two site loca­tions across the region.

By sign­ing with e‑Smart Group, BETA extends its cus­tomer base to include oper­a­tors with deep con­nec­tions
across both the Euro­pean and Mid­dle East­ern avi­a­tion sec­tors — a crit­i­cal ele­ment in bring­ing elec­tric
air­craft into new reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ments and com­plex air­space.

Stan Wraight, Pres­i­dent and CEO of SASI­World, and one of the found­ing part­ners of e‑Smart
Group, said: “Intro­duc­ing car­go oper­a­tions with elec­tric air­planes is a nat­ur­al evo­lu­tion for e‑Smart Group, ful­ly aligned with our strat­e­gy to meet – and exceed – our clients’ expec­ta­tions for reli­able and fast time-def­i­nite air logis­tics.

“The ALIA CTOL air­craft will enable us to deliv­er low-emis­sion, sus­tain­able, yet cost-effec­tive
solu­tions by lever­ag­ing the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy in car­go avi­a­tion.”

Jacques Heere­mans, own­er of IAS Inter Avi­a­tion Ser­vices, and co-founder of e‑Smart Group with Mr. Wraight and Denis Ilin, CEO of e‑Smart Group, added: “We are already see­ing strong inter­est from express and e‑commerce clients eager to inte­grate the ALIA CTOL into their oper­a­tions.

“Beyond that, we believe this inno­v­a­tive air­craft will become high­ly sought after for char­ter and reg­u­lar ship­ments of spe­cial car­go – such as life sci­ences, crit­i­cal spare parts, high-val­ue goods.”

e‑Smart Group joins a grow­ing port­fo­lio of top glob­al oper­a­tors that have pur­chased BETA’s air­craft and
charg­ers, includ­ing Air New Zealand, UPS, Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics, Bris­tow, Repub­lic Air­ways and Ryan Air.

BETA’s ALIA plat­form is cur­rent­ly under­go­ing FAA type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and is engi­neered for all-weath­er
oper­a­tions, IFR capa­bil­i­ty, and a range of car­go and pas­sen­ger use cas­es.