INTRODUCTION

Following on from our Urban Air Mobility and Carbon Removal powerlists, we’ve now turned our attention to the next generation aircraft that we will see flying within the next ten years.

What do we mean by next generation aircraft?

The next step up from eVTOLs, these are 10-40 seat planes that are either carbon neutral or with a vastly reduced carbon footprint.

Also referred to as AAM (advanced air mobility), these aircraft are powered by three different technologies, which we will go on to explore in this report: Electric, hybrid-electric and hydrogen-electric (there is also hydrogen-combustion, which Airbus is looking at).

Some companies are retrofitting existing aircraft (e.g. ZeroAvia and the Dornier 228), while others want to build completely new aircraft (e.g the Eviation Alice and the Heart Aerospace ES-30).

At SimpliFlying, we’re excited about the potential of these aircraft for two reasons.

First of all, they could have an immediate transformative effect on many communities, due to the fact that next generation aircraft will initially be on regional routes.

They solve the biggest issues around small and urban airports - noise, pollution and cost.

At a time when the aviation industry is under pressure to cap growth, we could actually see more people flying thanks to these planes, but in a less carbon intensive way.

Secondly, many of the companies we feature have a road-map to move from 19 to 50 to 100 aircraft, so the technology used in regional aircraft in 2029, could well form the basis of newer 100-200 seat narrowbodies in 2039.

Our power-list

There are dozens of next generation aircraft or engine manufacturers.

The majority of them are still sitting on the drawing board and / or looking for investors.

Given that bringing a new aircraft from design to certification to commercial flight is a $1-$2 billion play, clearly very few will make it.

In this report we’ve looked at ten players that have a good chance of commercial success in the next decade, based on their technology, level of interest from airlines

(and pre-orders), where they are in the development cycle and investors.

They are:

Ampaire

Cranfield Aerospace Solutions

Electra

Eviation

Faradair

Heart Aerospace MagniX

REGENT

Universal Hydrogen

ZeroAvia

Note, we’ve not covered eVTOLs here, instead you will find them in our Urban Air Mobility (UAM) power-list

Dirk Singer Head of Sustainability, SimpliFlying dirk@simpliflying.com