INTERVIEW: Ascendance’s Thibault Baldivia on Hybrid-Electric Momentum Ahead of Flying ATEA’s First Full-Scale Prototype In 2026

At last week’s Dubai Air­show, eVTOL Insights Exec­u­tive Edi­tor Jason Pritchard caught up with Thibault Bal­divia, Chief Com­mer­cial Offi­cer and Co-Founder at Ascen­dance.

The Toulouse-based com­pa­ny is pro­gress­ing toward the first flight of its hybrid-elec­tric ATEA VTOL air­craft and expand­ing its tech­nol­o­gy foot­print across avi­a­tion seg­ments.

Thibault shared the lat­est updates on the aircraft’s devel­op­ment, upcom­ing mile­stones and why the Mid­dle East is becom­ing an increas­ing­ly impor­tant region for next-gen­er­a­tion avi­a­tion.

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Jason Pritchard: “Thibault, great to speak to you again here in Dubai. A lot has hap­pened since you joined us in Munich for our Europe Con­fer­ence. What’s been going on at Ascen­dance?”

Thibault Bal­divia: “Since we last spoke, things have accel­er­at­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly. We’re deep into devel­op­ment of our two core prod­ucts: the ATEA air­craft, which is our hybrid-elec­tric VTOL com­ple­ment to heli­copters, and our stand­alone hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion sys­tem.

“On the air­craft side, we’re now assem­bling the first full-scale pro­to­type. The team has recent­ly com­plet­ed major struc­tur­al inte­gra­tion work—the parts have been bond­ed togeth­er, the air­craft is tak­ing shape, and it’s incred­i­bly reward­ing for the engi­neers who’ve invest­ed so many hours into this vision.

“In par­al­lel, all of the ‘red label’ flight-ready com­po­nents are under­go­ing test­ing on our bench­es. We’ll begin inte­grat­ing them into the air­craft short­ly. So yes, it’s a very excit­ing time and we’re still tar­get­ing a first flight in the com­ing months.

JP: That’s a huge mile­stone. What does the roadmap look like as you move toward 2026?

TB: “We’re enter­ing the phase where test­ing moves from the bench into the inte­grat­ed air­craft. It’s a crit­i­cal step—making sure every sys­tem fits togeth­er and per­forms as expect­ed once assem­bled.

“At the same time, we’re strength­en­ing rela­tion­ships with reg­u­la­tors and envi­ron­men­tal author­i­ties as we pre­pare for flight test­ing. Then, of course, our test pilots will take the air­craft into the air. From there, the full flight-test cam­paign unfolds.”

JP: Will all of that take place at your Toulouse facil­i­ties?

TB: “Yes. We have two sites in the Toulouse area: our main facil­i­ty, which sits on a his­toric air­field, and our ded­i­cat­ed flight-test cen­tre about 20 min­utes south of the city. The entire flight test cam­paign for ATEA will be based there.”

JP: We’re now see­ing more flight tests across the indus­try, with the likes of Archer, Volo­copter, Joby, BETA, Elec­tra and oth­ers. What does this moment mean for hybrid-elec­tric avi­a­tion and pub­lic adop­tion?

TB: “Doc­u­ment­ing these mile­stones is essential—not just the flights them­selves, but the jour­ney behind them. And beyond that, the indus­try is clear­ly shift­ing toward hybrid-elec­tric solu­tions. Over the past year espe­cial­ly, we’ve felt grow­ing recog­ni­tion that hybrid-elec­tric is the prag­mat­ic path­way for range, oper­a­tions and cus­tomer needs.

“So yes, we will be join­ing the ‘flight test fam­i­ly’ soon, but we also see our­selves play­ing a major role in the next chapter—globalising hybrid-elec­tric avi­a­tion and demon­strat­ing its poten­tial.”

JP: Beyond the air­craft, what else are you work­ing on that our read­ers should know?

TB: “We recent­ly had major momen­tum on the propul­sion side. In Sep­tem­ber, Ascen­dance was select­ed by Clean Avi­a­tion to devel­op our hybrid bat­tery pack—what we call the Hybrid Pack—for future region­al hybrid-elec­tric air­craft. We’re the only indus­tri­al con­sor­tium award­ed this spe­cif­ic grant, and we’re col­lab­o­rat­ing with part­ners such as Air­bus, ATR and Daher.

“We’re advanc­ing addi­tion­al ini­tia­tives around hybridi­s­a­tion that we can’t ful­ly dis­close yet but are very promis­ing.”

JP: Turn­ing to where we are today, what oppor­tu­ni­ties does this event cre­ate for Ascen­dance in the Mid­dle East?

TB: “The region has a pio­neer­ing spir­it when it comes to tech­nol­o­gy. There’s a gen­uine desire to be at the cut­ting edge of inno­va­tion, which aligns per­fect­ly with what we’re devel­op­ing.

“Every­one talks about elec­tric air taxis in Dubai or Abu Dhabi, but the geog­ra­phy here is also ide­al for region­al hybrid-elec­tric air­craft. Routes like Abu Dhabi to Al Ain or con­nec­tions between Sau­di Arabia’s giga-projects demand the range and oper­a­tional flex­i­bil­i­ty that hybrid-elec­tric air­craft deliv­er.

“We’ve also seen strong inter­est in hybrid-elec­tric propul­sion itself. Gov­ern­ments and oper­a­tors here want not only the newest con­cepts but also the next gen­er­a­tion of aviation’s under­ly­ing tech­nolo­gies. I gen­uine­ly believe part of aviation’s next chap­ter will be writ­ten in this region.”

JP: Is there any­thing else you’d like to add about Ascendance’s jour­ney?

TB: “We’re at a piv­otal point not only for advanced air mobil­i­ty, but for region­al mobil­i­ty and even defence appli­ca­tions. Hybrid-elec­tric sys­tems enable qui­eter, longer-range oper­a­tions for UAVs and we’re see­ing momen­tum across all these sec­tors.

“After years of work, it’s grat­i­fy­ing to see hybrid-elec­tric tech­nol­o­gy rec­og­nized as a key enabler for the future of avi­a­tion. And we’re proud to be at the fore­front of it.”

JP: Thibault, thank you and best of luck with the flight test cam­paign. We look for­ward to the next update.

TB: “Thank you. And don’t worry—you’ll be invit­ed!”