Volotea, Air Nostrum ask for €42mn to fund electric aircraft

Volotea (V7, Asturias) has elaborated that one of the three projects it has applied for to obtain around EUR70 million euros (USD82.8 million) in funding from the European Commission’s Recovery and Resilience Facility is as part of a consortium with Air Nostrum (YW, Valencia Manises) and hybrid-electric regional aircraft developer Dante Aeronautical. The project accounts for EUR42 million (USD50 million) of the potential funding and proposes the conversion and electrification of short- and medium-haul aircraft, modifying them for a reduced capacity of between nine and 19 passengers, and investing to create new propulsion technologies with alternative energy. This would, a statement from the consortium said, improve links to “peripheral areas, particularly on the islands.” The troika said it was keen to respond to environmental challenges that threaten the aviation sector by transforming aircraft into becoming 100% electric. “The scope includes the design, engineering, and implementation of the necessary modifications for the adaptation of conventional small capacity aircraft (between nine and 19 passengers) and investment in the development of technologies for propulsion with alternative energies, with the aim of minimising emissions in flight,” the four-page joint statement outlined. This alternative is a fast one, it added, avoiding the long and costly development of an aircraft from scratch. Certification of the first aircraft is scheduled for 2024, to be followed by “versions of various aircraft fully operational by 2026.” While the Spanish-Australian firm Dante Aeronautical will assume the technical leadership of the project, Volotea and Air Nostrum pledged to contribute by “supplying information about the market and, above all, contributing the work of their respective technical areas. Both airlines hope to be pioneers in the application of this technology on regional routes,” the statement said. The intention of the consortium is to co-finance the project through the European Commission’s public-private initiative, which, as previously reported, was announced last October and entered force on February 19, 2021. The facility in particular pushes green and digital reforms as Europe’s economies recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, in order to make the countries “more resilient and better prepared for the future.” “We started our collaboration with Dante Aeronautical a couple of years ago, in 2019, and […] today the project is even broader and has the support of another major airline, Air Nostrum, as well as many other companies in the technology sector in Spain. A hybrid-electric aircraft reduces carbon emissions and also noise. Supporting this project makes perfect sense, as it fits our mission to connect cities that need a better network while also minimising the environmental impact,” said Volotea founder and CEO Carlos Muñoz.