SINGAPORE AIRSHOW 2024: Lilium establishes new customer service organisation and inks electric aircraft charging deal with Star Charge

Lil­i­um has today (Wednes­day) made two fur­ther announce­ments at this year’s Sin­ga­pore Air­show, as it con­tin­ues on its path­way to com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion.

First, the com­pa­ny has appoint­ed Senior Lil­i­um Exec­u­tive Dominique Decard to head what it has described as the indus­try’s first Cus­tomer Ser­vice organ­i­sa­tion, known as Lil­i­um POWER-ON.

It is a new­ly estab­lished busi­ness offer­ing the full air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er ser­vices port­fo­lio. This includes train­ing ser­vices, main­te­nance oper­a­tions, mate­r­i­al and bat­tery man­age­ment and glob­al dis­tri­b­u­tion, flight oper­a­tions sup­port, ground ser­vice equip­ment and dig­i­tal solu­tions.

Com­ment­ing on this announce­ment, Klaus Roewe, Lil­i­um CEO, said: “As region­al air mobil­i­ty accel­er­ates, our part­ners can rely on Lil­i­um to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive air­craft man­u­fac­tur­er ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion. The team is focused on enabling seam­less, effi­cient ser­vices and sup­port through pre­mi­um after­mar­ket prod­ucts and world-class part­ners.

“With an expe­ri­enced leader like Dominique at the helm, we are con­fi­dent Lil­i­um POWER-ON will offer out­stand­ing cus­tomer ser­vice while strength­en­ing Lilium’s busi­ness.”

Work began on Lil­i­um POWER-ON, two years ahead of the Lil­i­um Jet’s expect­ed entry into ser­vice. Lil­i­um already announced a num­ber of part­ner­ships for its ser­vices busi­ness, includ­ing flight train­ing with Lufthansa Avi­a­tion Train­ing, Flight­Safe­ty Inter­na­tional, and glob­al mate­r­i­al ser­vices with AJW Group, as well as dig­i­tal air­craft health man­age­ment solu­tions with Palan­tir.

Decard is a Fran­co-Ger­man engi­neer, with degrees from TU Munich and Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty. He joined Lil­i­um in 2018 and is cur­rent­ly VP Flight Oper­a­tions & Cus­tomer Ser­vice, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly served as Direc­tor Flight Test Spain. In his new role, he will report to Lilium’s Chief Com­mer­cial Offi­cer, Sebastien Borel.

He has 20 years of expe­ri­ence in senior lead­er­ship posi­tions in France, Ger­many, Spain, and UK in air­line oper­a­tions, the cre­ation of pro­duc­tion plat­forms and new busi­ness mod­els, cus­tomer sup­port organ­i­sa­tions and mar­ket entry strat­e­gy devel­op­ment.

Decard added: “As we offi­cial­ly launch Lil­i­um POWER-ON, our pri­or­i­ty will be to test the full range of prod­ucts and ser­vices to sup­port our future oper­a­tors dur­ing Lil­i­um flight test­ing cam­paign and con­tin­ue to con­tract and onboard the best part­ners for our work­ing ecosys­tem.

“The ser­vices rev­enue and con­tri­bu­tion mar­gins will play a cru­cial role in Lilium’s prof­itabil­i­ty. I am excit­ed to lead this organ­i­sa­tion from the very begin­ning with a clear vision for our cus­tomers.”

The sec­ond announce­ment has seen Lil­i­um part­ner with Star Charge to devel­op, cus­tomise, and pro­vide charg­ing sys­tems for its Lil­i­um Jets.

This agree­ment will see Lil­i­um place a first order of 120 charg­ers for its ground and flight test­ing air­craft, as well as its air­craft main­te­nance and deliv­ery cen­tre activ­i­ties. The com­pa­ny will also pro­vide charg­ing sta­tions to its cus­tomers invest­ing into ver­ti­ports.

Lil­i­um pre­vi­ous­ly announced its adop­tion of the Com­bined Charg­ing Sys­tem (CCS) stan­dard for rapid charg­ing. Star Charge’s cus­tomised, fast-charg­ing sys­tem will be ful­ly com­pat­i­ble with the Lil­i­um Jets and oth­er eVTOL air­craft com­pat­i­ble with CCS.

The charg­ers will fea­ture an extra-long liq­uid cooled charg­ing cable for high-per­for­mance charg­ing, suit­able for var­ied land­ing infra­struc­ture. By using Star Charge’s CCS charg­ers, Lil­i­um expects to reduce charg­ing times sig­nif­i­cant­ly, in com­par­i­son to oth­er charg­ers with­out liq­uid cooled charg­ing cables.

Reduced charg­ing times will sup­port reduced turn­around times between flights and pro­vide high­er util­i­sa­tion of the Lil­i­um Jet.

Ji Cheng, Star Charge Europe CEO, said: “We are grate­ful to have received the first order of CCS charg­ers by a lead­ing eVTOL man­u­fac­tur­er and look for­ward to com­menc­ing deliv­er­ies this year. We look for­ward to part­ner­ing with Lil­i­um to pow­er the next gen­er­a­tion of mobil­i­ty, offer­ing greater time-sav­ing ben­e­fits to pas­sen­gers while con­sid­er­ably reduc­ing the envi­ron­men­tal impact of trav­el.”

Com­ment­ing on this announce­ment, Borel added: “Our part­ner­ship with Star Charge will sup­port the Lil­i­um Jet´s devel­op­ment and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion along with our cus­tomers’ ground infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment. Its high per­for­mance and liq­uid cooled charg­ing cable is a unique fea­ture and Star Charge´s proven exper­tise in charg­ing infra­struc­ture is cru­cial for region­al air mobil­i­ty.“

Lil­i­um began pro­duc­tion of the Lil­i­um Jet in late 2023, fol­low­ing its Design Orga­ni­za­tion Approval by EASA. As Lil­i­um expects to enter into ser­vice in 2026 and as its glob­al fleet size grows, Lil­i­um expects mate­r­i­al prof­it con­tri­bu­tion in recur­ring rev­enue from its After­mar­ket Ser­vice Busi­ness, includ­ing elec­tri­cal charg­ers.