Open Skies Network secures investment to integrate next generation seaplanes and autonomous aircraft into South West UK

Open Skies Net­work (OSN) — a spin­out from the suc­cess­ful Open Skies Corn­wall project — has secured invest­ment from the Great South West’s New Inno­va­tors in Marine and Mar­itime fund.

The fund­ing will enable the expan­sion of its net­work and explore options to accel­er­ate the intro­duc­tion of elec­tric sea­plane, amphib­ian and car­go drone capa­bil­i­ty in the South West of the UK.

The invest­ment will build on the recent trail­blaz­ing progress made by the Open Skies team in unmanned car­go adop­tion in Corn­wall, and increase its water, manned avi­a­tion and region­al air mobil­i­ty geo­graph­ic foot­print.

Gareth What­more, CEO of Open Skies Net­work, said: “Decar­bonised avi­a­tion is mov­ing from con­cept to real­i­ty, and the South West is per­fect­ly placed to lead the way and estab­lish an Open Skies Net­work to sup­port a new wave of avi­a­tion ser­vices.

“The Har­bourLift pro­gramme will build the evi­dence we need to under­stand how these air­craft can serve real com­mu­ni­ty needs, while reduc­ing emis­sions and sup­port­ing region­al economies.”

OSN is a new com­mer­cial com­pa­ny, spun out from the high­ly suc­cess­ful Open Skies Corn­wall project and com­pris­ing for­mer win­ners of the Future Flight Chal­lenge, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, tech­ni­cal spe­cial­ists and reg­u­la­tors.

The com­pa­ny has launched in Corn­wall to with a vision to estab­lish a region­al Open Skies Net­work of enabling infra­struc­ture, land­ing zones, and air­space that will accel­er­ate the adop­tion of new avi­a­tion and region­al air mobil­i­ty.

OSN has already devel­oped a shared air­space Con­cept of Oper­a­tions part­ner­ship with the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty and local aero­dromes in the South  West to sup­port the adop­tion of civil­ian drone oper­a­tions in its South West launch mar­ket.

It has also attract­ed sev­en air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers and four oper­a­tors to fly sor­ties that will val­i­date com­mer­cial region­al require­ments of Open Skies part­ners, includ­ing Roy­al Mail, the NHS, Fal­mouth Har­bour and Corn­wall Coun­cil.

The ‘Har­bourLift’ pro­gramme will ini­tial­ly assess the fea­si­bil­i­ty of oper­at­ing zero-emis­sion flights between key har­bour cities and towns in Dorset, Som­er­set, Devon, Corn­wall and the Isles of Scil­ly, enabling greater coastal con­nec­tiv­i­ty through the use of sus­tain­able, short-hop air mobil­i­ty.

The team will work with local ports, har­bours, air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers and oper­a­tors to exam­ine the full range of fac­tors required to intro­duce elec­tric sea­planes to the region, includ­ing:

• Air­craft per­for­mance and ener­gy require­ments
• Dock­ing and charg­ing infra­struc­ture needs
• Suit­abil­i­ty of har­bours and mar­itime envi­ron­ments
• Inte­gra­tion with fer­ries, rail, bus­es, and con­ven­tion­al region­al avi­a­tion

The pro­gramme will also look beyond pas­sen­ger trav­el, explor­ing how amphib­ian air­craft and sea­planes in a vari­ety of sizes and con­fig­u­ra­tions could sup­port exist­ing OSN part­ners includ­ing med­ical logis­tics (NHS), emer­gency response (Mar­itime Coast­guard Agency), and sus­tain­able par­cel deliv­ery (Roy­al Mail) across the South West’s dis­persed coastal and island com­mu­ni­ties.

The pro­gramme comes at a crit­i­cal time for coastal com­mu­ni­ties, which often face lim­it­ed trans­port options, long jour­ney times, and sea­son­al con­ges­tion.

By val­i­dat­ing how clean avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy could work in prac­tice, Har­bourLift aims to demon­strate how short-hop amphib­ian ser­vices could pro­vide a faster, green­er, and more sus­tain­able alter­na­tive for region­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty and estab­lish fur­ther port, man­u­fac­tur­er and oper­a­tor part­ner­ships to imple­ment net­work expan­sion, allow­ing for wider ser­vice adop­tion.

Com­mu­ni­ty-Led Inno­va­tion

A defin­ing fea­ture of the OSN approach is its com­mit­ment to engage­ment with res­i­dents, busi­ness­es, and har­bour users. From fish­er­men and fer­ry oper­a­tors to tourism providers and local coun­cils, com­mu­ni­ty input will be cen­tral to shap­ing how elec­tric sea­planes might be deployed.

Louis Gard­ner, Pro­gramme Man­ag­er of the Har­bourLift ini­tia­tive, said: “Trans­port inno­va­tion only works if it reflects the voic­es of those who use it. That’s why Har­bourLift is as much about con­sul­ta­tion as it is about tech­nol­o­gy.

“We want to ensure clean­er air trav­el is devel­oped in a way that tru­ly ben­e­fits coastal towns and that our ports and har­bours are Avi­a­tion Ready.”

A Green­er, Faster Alter­na­tive

Elec­tric sea­planes and new gen­er­a­tion zero-emis­sion amphib­ian air­craft com­bine sev­er­al advan­tages over alter­na­tive trans­port meth­ods, includ­ing low noise, zero direct emis­sions, and short-haul effi­cien­cy, with dual use capa­bil­i­ties across water and land. For com­mu­ni­ties sep­a­rat­ed by chal­leng­ing road or fer­ry jour­neys, they have real poten­tial to dra­mat­i­cal­ly cut trav­el times. 

Wouter du Preez, Chief Invest­ment Offi­cer at JEKTA Switzer­land, which is devel­op­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of zero-emis­sions amphibi­ous air­craft, said: “Sus­tain­ably pow­ered amphib­ian air­craft with mul­ti-pur­pose oper­at­ing capa­bil­i­ties across water and land open up a new era of afford­able, sus­tain­able air mobil­i­ty that has the poten­tial to add real val­ue to local com­mu­ni­ties — espe­cial­ly those in tra­di­tion­al­ly remote geo­gra­phies.  

“The Har­bourLift pro­gramme pro­vides a fan­tas­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to work close­ly with local com­mu­ni­ties, infra­struc­ture providers and ser­vice oper­a­tors with­in the Open Skies Net­work to test and eval­u­ate inte­gra­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties; inform­ing ulti­mate ser­vice design to meet the needs of busi­ness­es, civ­il ser­vices, and res­i­dents alike.”

The first stage of the Har­bourLift Pilot Pro­gramme will run through 2025–26, with inter­im find­ings inform­ing the imple­men­ta­tion stage in 2026.