Jekta Signs LOI with Gayo Aviation for “Ten PHA-ZE 100 Flying Boats”

Swiss-based Jek­ta, a man­u­fac­tur­er of an elec­tri­cal­ly-pow­ered pas­sen­ger “Hydro Air­craft Zero Emis­sion 100 (PHA-ZE 100) Fly­ing Boat” announced this week the sign­ing of a Let­ter of Intent (LOI) for the acqui­si­tion by Gayo Avi­a­tion of ten elec­tri­cal­ly-pow­ered amphibi­ous craft, reports a press release. This is Jekta’s first poten­tial deal.

With main offices in Swe­den and Dubai, Gayo Avi­a­tion is a glob­al provider of pri­vate and spe­cial­ist avi­a­tion ser­vices and will aim to opti­mise the fly­ing boats to sup­port exist­ing and new mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties.

The release explains, “The air­frame will be deliv­ered in a base­line con­fig­u­ra­tion for 19 pas­sen­gers, with the deal includ­ing ground sup­port equip­ment for charg­ing and replac­ing the PHA-ZE 100’s bat­ter­ies; tools and com­po­nent sup­port for the first year of oper­a­tion; train­ing for two pilots and two tech­ni­cians; and a three-year air­frame war­ran­ty.”

It con­tin­ues, “Gayo Avi­a­tion plans to make the air­craft avail­able for envi­ron­men­tal and expe­ri­en­tial tourism and char­ter oper­a­tors wish­ing to bol­ster their sus­tain­able trans­port options. Gayo will also offer the air­craft on lease for sched­uled afford­able region­al ser­vices in under­served com­mu­ni­ties.”

Gisle Due­land, CEO of Gayo Avi­a­tion, com­ment­ed, “We want to be among the first to pro­vide our cus­tomers with a tru­ly sus­tain­able option to trans­port their pas­sen­gers. With the poten­tial to reduce per-pas­sen­ger-per-hour costs by more than 70 per­cent com­pared to cur­rent sea­planes we can sat­is­fy that need.”

He con­tin­ued, “The trend for the top end of the tourism com­mu­ni­ty is towards sus­tain­able and expe­ri­en­tial trav­el, so we want­ed to be ahead of the curve and first in line to serve this evolv­ing sec­tor.  This opens up more oppor­tu­ni­ties to sup­ply sus­tain­able tourism options and Gayo is com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing this expan­sion. We antic­i­pate that inter­est in trav­el on these air­frames will be high.”

This poten­tial deal demon­strates indus­try faith in the PHA-ZE 100 as Jek­ta CEO George Alafi­nov con­tin­ues nego­ti­a­tions with a sec­ond poten­tial cus­tomer from the Gulf.

Alafi­nov said, “Sus­tain­abil­i­ty does not have to mean a com­pro­mise in com­fort or capa­bil­i­ty and the PHA-ZE 100 has been designed to meet these needs. It also sat­is­fies the increas­ing demand and oppor­tu­ni­ty to use water as infra­struc­ture, the expan­sion of sea­plane routes, and pro­vides a sus­tain­able, opti­mised solu­tion to replace age­ing sea­planes.”

The PHA-ZE 100 fly­ing boat is to be cer­ti­fied to EASA CS-23 and US FAA FAR-23 stan­dards for fixed-wing pas­sen­ger air­craft. The craft will serve coastal and island com­mu­ni­ties, region­al routes cur­rent­ly lim­it­ed by oper­a­tional costs, and sup­port new low-cost, sus­tain­able ser­vices between cities with­out the need for the instal­la­tion of expen­sive land infra­struc­ture.

It also has a con­fig­u­ra­tion to suit the par­tic­u­lar needs of expe­ri­en­tial vaca­tions being large enough to car­ry kayaks, scu­ba equip­ment, and oth­er gear required to sup­port adven­ture sports. Flex­i­ble con­fig­u­ra­tions, includ­ing 19-seat, mixed economy/freight, VIP, and ambu­lance options, make the most of the PHA-ZE 100’s spa­cious, stand-up cab­in. Low main­te­nance and fuel costs, much-reduced noise, no pol­lu­tion impact, and min­i­mal avi­a­tion infra­struc­ture require­ments com­bine to make the PHA-ZE 100 an opti­mal plat­form for sus­tain­able and new oper­a­tions.

Back­ground

Led by George Alafi­nov, the Jek­ta team has more than two decades of expe­ri­ence design­ing and build­ing fly­ing boats, includ­ing the eight-seat, com­pos­ite LA‑8 and D‑Borey ultra­light. The com­pa­ny is cre­at­ing a mod­ern, 26,901 m² pro­duc­tion and flight test facil­i­ty with­in the Swiss Aero­pole Clus­ter in the can­ton of Vaud, Switzer­land. It will include design, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, logis­tics, main­te­nance and sales depart­ments as well as an assem­bly hall, qual­i­ty con­trol lab­o­ra­to­ry, flight test organ­i­sa­tion and admin­is­tra­tive offices.

George Alafi­nov ® Talks to Poten­tial Sau­di Cus­tomers (cred­it: Jek­ta)

The PHA-ZE 100 is pow­ered by ten elec­tric motors sup­plied with ener­gy from either bat­ter­ies or hydro­gen fuel cells. Its ini­tial flight endurance on bat­tery pow­er is pro­ject­ed at one hour, with a 30-minute reserve.

The fly­ing boat will oper­ate from coastal waters, lakes and gen­er­al water­ways and can oper­ate in waves up to 1.2m high. Jek­ta is aim­ing to reduce per-pas­sen­ger-per-hour costs by more than 70 per­cent com­pared to cur­rent sea­planes

For more infor­ma­tion

https://gayo.se

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