Alaska Airlines predicts rapid eVTOL deployment – CEO

Alaska Airlines (AS, Seattle Tacoma Int’l) predicts that electric vertical take-off-and-landing (eVTOL) aircraft will become a mainstay of commercial aviation within the next decade, newly appointed chief executive officer Ben Minicucci said during the Aviation Summit 2021 hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce. “We’re looking at it very closely, there are currently a lot of companies working on this technology and I think it’s going to come in more rapidly in the next decade than you think. Probably in the next decade, we’re going to see something, based on the research that we’ve done,” Minicucci, who assumed his position on March 31, said. He underlined that electric aircraft are poised to be the key technology driving industry emission-reduction goals. However, he did not go into any details regarding Alaska Airlines’ potential use of eVTOLs or by another airline in cooperation with his carrier. Among the carriers which have invested in eVTOL start-ups and/or tentatively committed to buying such aircraft are JetBlue Airways (Joby Aviation) and United Airlines (Archer Aviation). European carriers including British Airways, Finnair, Widerøe, Volotea, and Air Nostrum have also announced partnerships with other zero-emission aircraft manufacturer start-ups.