Surf Air Mobility and BETA Technologies to Launch First Commercial Passenger Electric Aircraft Service and new MRO center in Hawaii

Surf Air Mobil­i­ty has signed a firm order for 25 of BETA Tech­nolo­gies’ ALIA eCTOL air­craft, with the option to add up to 75 addi­tion­al air­craft, as it plans to launch the first com­mer­cial elec­tric pas­sen­ger ser­vice in Hawaii.

As part of the strate­gic part­ner­ship, Surf Air Mobil­i­ty will com­bine its oper­at­ing exper­tise, exist­ing pas­sen­ger demand, and estab­lished air­port infra­struc­ture with BETA’s mar­ket-lead­ing elec­tric air­craft and charg­ing infra­struc­ture.

In addi­tion to flight oper­a­tions, Surf Air Mobil­i­ty is prepar­ing to oper­ate a new Main­te­nance, Repair, and Over­haul cen­ter, which, once cer­ti­fied, will be the exclu­sive fac­to­ry-autho­rized ser­vice cen­ter for BETA elec­tric air­craft in Hawaii.

The MRO facil­i­ty is antic­i­pat­ed to add a new and grow­ing rev­enue stream for Surf Air Mobil­i­ty. The com­pa­nies also plan to col­lab­o­rate on the deploy­ment of BETA’s charg­ing and ground sup­port equip­ment at mutu­al­ly agreed loca­tions to sup­port Surf Air Mobility’s fleet oper­a­tions. Surf Air Mobil­i­ty intends to des­ig­nate BETA as its pre­ferred sup­pli­er for elec­tric ground infra­struc­ture sup­port­ing its air­craft.

Dean­na White, CEO of Surf Air Mobil­i­ty, said: “BETA’s air­craft are being designed for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions, with the per­for­mance, oper­at­ing cost, and reli­a­bil­i­ty we believe can be uti­lized across our sched­uled pas­sen­ger, on-demand, and car­go ser­vices.

“Our Air­craft Pur­chase Agree­ment grants us the abil­i­ty to ben­e­fit from BETA’s unique prod­uct strat­e­gy, start­ing with the ALIA CTOL vari­ant per­fect for mis­sions using exist­ing region­al air­ports, and end­ing with the intro­duc­tion of a VTOL vari­ant. Our goal is to lead the com­mer­cial roll­out of elec­tric avi­a­tion, includ­ing fly­ing the first pay­ing pas­sen­ger on a next-gen­er­a­tion elec­tric air­craft.”

Surf Air Mobil­i­ty is a Los Ange­les-based air mobil­i­ty plat­form. With its AI-enabled Sur­fOS soft­ware and elec­tri­fi­ca­tion pro­grams, Surf Air Mobil­i­ty pro­vides tech­nol­o­gy designed to sup­port the mod­ern­iza­tion of air oper­a­tions and the adop­tion of next-gen­er­a­tion air­craft.

Surf Air Mobil­i­ty cur­rent­ly oper­ates one of the largest com­muter air­lines in the Unit­ed States by sched­uled depar­tures, which pro­vides oper­a­tional scale and real-world oper­at­ing data to val­i­date and deploy its soft­ware.

The com­pa­ny expects to ini­tial­ly deploy BETA air­craft for car­go ser­vices under Mokulele Air­lines in Hawaii, an opti­mal launch mar­ket with fre­quent trav­el between islands, short-haul routes, and estab­lished air­port infra­struc­ture.

Fol­low­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of BETA’s pas­sen­ger con­fig­ured ALIA air­craft, Surf Air Mobil­i­ty plans to be the first Part 135 oper­a­tor to com­mer­cial­ize elec­tric pas­sen­ger flights for sched­uled ser­vice and On Demand char­ter flights.

Kyle Clark, Founder and CEO of BETA Tech­nolo­gies, said: “As a region­al air­line with real oper­a­tional dis­ci­pline, Surf Air Mobil­i­ty has been reshap­ing mobil­i­ty for a long time. We’re proud to part­ner with them on this next step to elec­tri­fy their fleet.

“Launch­ing in Hawaii, with its short-haul routes, inter-island demand, and high fuel costs, enables us to con­tin­ue to build on our exten­sive flight expe­ri­ence and tran­si­tion that demon­strat­ed per­for­mance into a scaled air­line oper­a­tion that is reli­able and cost-effi­cient.

“We look for­ward to work­ing togeth­er to stand up a launch mar­ket that will bring elec­tric avi­a­tion to dai­ly oper­a­tions and accel­er­ate expan­sion into addi­tion­al regions.”