In this episode of the podcast we’ll explore one of the most truly disruptive clean-sheet aircraft projects currently underway.

Scott Drennan is President and Chief Operations Officer (COO) of Otto Aviation, a US startup aircraft maker that is developing an ultra-efficient executive jet. The Phantom 3500 uses a teardrop-shaped design to take full advantage of the laminar flow principle and reduce drag to a minimum.

Otto Aviation is, in fact, not a newcomer. The firm has been working on this concept for more than a decade, although in the last few years it has pivoted from the original idea, the Celera 500L propeller aircraft for the general aviation market, to the Phantom 3500, a fully-fledged business jet which aims to compete in the super-mid-size category of business jets.

With Scott we talk about Otto Aviation’s disruptive approach to aircraft design, how laminar flow can be mastered to achieve some unprecedented fuel efficiency gains and what this involves in terms of financial and environmental performance. We also touch upon one of the most eye-catching features of the Phantom 3500: the absence of windows for extra aerodynamical gains and how Otto Aviation is responding with a new way to conceive the passenger experience.

And, following the announcement, made during the 2025 Paris Air Show, that Otto Aviation is investing in a greenfield manufacturing facility in Jacksonville, Florida, we also discuss the company’s investment plans and go-to-market strategy. How many aircraft is it planning to build per year? Who is it planning to primarily compete with and how?

Tune in for a fascinating conversation that combines technical and commercial insights about the unique Phantom 3500 business jet, a flying bullet which may change how we think about aerodynamics and aircraft construction!

When we talk about aviation sustainability, the first thing that usually comes to mind is propulsion technologies or new aircraft designs.

But there are other ways to lower the environmental footprint of flying. Some are even hidden in plain sight!

Today we bring you the story of a company doing its bit to make aviation more sustainable, but in a rather original way: GenPhoenix makes ELeather, which is an innovative lightweight material that can be found on many aircraft seats.

ELeather is actually made by upcycling organic leather scraps, preventing them from going to a landfill (and liberating methane) while, at the same time, helping bring down weight onboard the aircraft, with the related savings in fuel and emissions.

Lisa Conway, Chief Revenue Officer at GenPhoenix, has been on the podcast to share all the details about this interesting technology, which you may have already been using, even without noticing!

Tune in for a fascinating conversation about this segment of the industry that operates at the crossroads between sustainability and passenger experience!

Ivar Aune is the CEO of SiriNor, a company working on an electric jet engine.

Yes, you read that right! While most electric aircraft projects aim to power a propeller, SiriNor is going for the very technology that powers most of today’s commercial aviation industry.

After all, a modern jet engine works by making a turbine spin. But while conventional jets rely on a combustion process that produces very high temperatures, SiriNor aims to replace that bit with an electrically-powered mechanism.

The result: cheaper, easier to build engines which are as performing as conventional ones.

All of this is still some time into the future, since SiriNor is still, by most measures, a young startup. However, Ivar’s team has already tested successfully one of its electric jet engines on the ground and it is aiming to have some certified and commercially-ready models for UAVs and ground-effect-vehicles within the next couple of years.

If this sounds ambitious, you haven’t heard it all yet, because the ultimate goal is to be able to apply the electric jet engine technology to larger aircraft, potentially even the A320/B737-sized airliners that are the workhorses of today’s aviation industry.

A rather tall order, indeed, but Ivar, who spend the earlier part of his career in the Norwegian oil and gas industry, has no doubts about the need for the aviation industry to make bold bets if it is to remain, over the next decades, the engine of growth that it has been to this day.

So tune in for a fascinating conversation about a truly promising, and rather intriguing, technology that has been, pretty much, kept under wraps until very recently!

Wizz Air takes pride in having the lowest carbon footprint per passenger and kilometer in the airline industry, 52g, number that it expects to bring further down as it renews the fleet with larger, denser and more efficient aircraft.

But fleet renewal alone won’t do the trick. In fact, “fleet” is just one of the three “Fs” that the pan-European ultra-low-cost airline relies on to get to Net Zero by 2050, even in a context of growing air traffic.

“Footprint”, that is, efficiency improvements in the way aircraft are operates, is another, relatively minor “F” in this vision. But the bulk of the carbon reduction will rest upon the massive use of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Since production of SAF is currently small, Wizz Air has decided to take a proactive stance and become a direct investor in a number of innovative SAF projects, one of the most promising of which is Firefly, a British startup that turns sewage into SAF.

In this episode of the podcast, Yvonne Moynihan, head of ESG and sustainability at Wizz Air, and James Hygate OBE, founder and CEO of Firefly, share the (virtual) stage to explain this project in detail.

We will talk about how Firefly technology works, how scalable it is and how does this project fit into Wizz Air’s SAF-sourcing ans well as in the airline’s broader decarbonization plans.

Tune in for a fascinating chat about one of the most interesting SAF projects right now in Europe and how it will help Wizz Air strengthen its sustainability credentials even further…

In this episode of the podcast we welcome Amelia DeLuca, Chief Sustainability Officer at Delta Air Lines.

Besides being one of the World’s largest airlines, Delta, is also a very active player in the field of air travel innovation and decarbonization.

Delta has committed to getting to net zero by 2050 with Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) expected to play a big role in achieving this goal. To this end, Delta has signed a string of SAF deals across the US and is also working with SAF producers in several states to increase supply of this so-far scarce type of fuel. Delta intends to use 10% of SAF in its fuel mix by 2030 and to increase this figure to 35% by 2035.

But this is not the only path to decarbonization that Delta is exploring.

In fact, when it comes to sustainability, Delta is active on so many fronts that it has created the Delta Sustainable Skies Lab to gather all its sustainability-focused initiatives under one roof.

Remarkably, just as Delta is marking its centenary, it is also actively investing in technologies that promise to re-shape the way to travel in the next 100 years. Two examples of this policy are Delta’s is investment in leading eVTOL developer Joby Aviation and its strategic partnership with JetZero, a startup developing a revolutionary blended-wing-body aircraft concept capable of halving fuel consumption, all while redefining completely the passenger experience.

So, tune in to listen to Amelia talking about all these exciting projects and explaining how they fit into Delta’s vision of the future of commercial aviation!

Flynow is an Austrian eVTOL developer with big ambitions and, so far, a low media profile. But you can be sure that if you ever come across one of its eCopters, with its distinctive capsule-like, tail-less shape, it will catch your eye!

Yvonne Winter, our guest in this episode of the podcast, is the co-founder and CCO of this startup, which aims to produce tens of thousands of electrically-powered eCopter eVTOLs, both for cargo and passenger transportation. The idea is that the eCopters will be automated fly so that costs go down to the point when eCopters become competitive with land transport.

Despite being based at the foot of the Alps, it may be the Saudi deserts that may first see the eCopters in action, though, since Flynow is working with a local partner to produce and test these small aircraft in the Middle Eastern Kingdom.

In our conversation, Yvonne enumerate the advantages of the approach Flynow has chosen and why she is confident the eCopter will soon be operating commercial missions, in Saudi Arabia first and then elsewhere.

So, tune in for an interesting conversation about the no nonsense way to design an eVTOL: leveraging proven technologies, set for itself achievable goals and made small steps towards their fulfillment!

This episode has two exceptional guests because more often than not, innovation doesn’t happen in isolation.

Great successful products and services are those that fast achieve product-market fit and this is precisely what we are going to talk about here today.

Our guests are Marc Allen, CEO of Electra, a US startup that is developing a hybrid-electric ultra-short take-off and landing aircraft capable of landing in incredibly short open spaces, and Tomislav Land, co-founder and CEO of Flyvbird, a startup airline based in Germany which aims to transform regional air travel with an on-demand capilar air mobility network.

At this point, I must say that Tomislav is, actually, a veteran of this podcast, since he was here already in 2022 when Flyvbird was starting to take shape.

Quite a few things have happened since then, so we do examine with Marc and Tomislav the current state of the industry, and talk about what the market is asking for right now.

And while it is true that the market has cooled somehow when it comes to some of the most complex cleansheet aircraft projects from the point of view of technology, regulatory burdens and capital requirements, there is still plenty of appetite for advanced air mobility projects that are low risk, clean, safe and efficient.

And Electra’s EL9 aircraft, which is currently undergoing development and evaluation, among others, by the US military, seems to tick pretty much all these boxes. Marc will provide us with some insights about the current status of the project and the steps it is taking towards certification, while Tomislav will explain how it fits perfectly in Flyvbird’s plans to build a new generation on-demand regional airline.

Last but not least, both CEOs also talk about the ways they are collaborating to ensure success through the so much sough-after product-market fit.

Tune in to learn more about one of the most non-nonsense cleansheet aircraft projects right now in the market!

Josef Kallo is a true sustainable aviation pioneer. He was already working on hydrogen-powered aircraft back in 2013, when few outside a small circle had heard about sustainable aviation or alternative propulsion technologies.

Fast forward to 2021 and H2FLY, the company he has been leading for over a decade, made headlines after being acquired by Joby Aviation, one of the forerunners in the advanced air mobility race.

During all this time, H2FLY has been steadily and quietly making strides in the field of hydrogen propulsion and, in September 2023, it made history be being the first to fly an aircraft on liquid hydrogen, a technology that poses some interesting technology challenges.

What is H2FLY currently working on? What is the future of hydrogen-powered aviation? What role is H2FLY going to play in also powering the eVTOL revolution?

Tune in for an in-depth conversation with one of the world’s leading experts in hydrogen aviation, Josef Kallo!

Payments are an essential element of the airline business and one that is often overlooked by most people.

But, have you considered the tech required by any international carrier to handle thousands of payments from all over the world, smoothly and instantly?

In this episode, produced in partnership with CellPoint Digital, we delve into the topic of airline payments tech.

Diego Pérez, VP Business Development for Latin America and CellPoint Digital, shares some insights about the different elements involved in an airline payment. He also explains what is payment orchestration, and why it matters if you wish to offer multiple payment methods to your customers.

Diego will also share his experience working in the Latin American markets, a region of the world that stands out in the use of alternative payments, that is using methods and channels different from the classical credit card payment. This is also becoming increasingly relevant for airlines in other parts of the world, as Gen Z travellers show a preference for a diversity of payment methods.

So, tune in to learn more about the trends that shifting the payment landscape and how technology is providing answers to them!