The Allplane Podcast

Giulio Ranucci is the Head of Innovation at Aeroporti di Roma (AdR), the company managing Rome’s two airports, Fiumicino (FCO) and Ciampino (CIA), with nearly 45 million annual passengers combined.

What makes Giulio’s work at the helm of AdR’s innovation arm particularly interesting, is the very active role that the Italian airport operator is playing in fostering technology innovation in the airport sector.

The initiatives taken by AdR go well beyond Rome and Italy. Its annual startup accelerator programme is open to startups from all over the world and Aeroporti di Roma has also been instrumental in establishing a global network of airports, stretching all the way from Vancouver to Dubai, which share this interest in accelerating innovative systems and solutions with the potential to improve the passengers’ airport experience. This is an area, where, I think many will agree, there is lots of scope for improvement!

In this episode of the podcast to learn how Aeroporti di Roma has structured its startup accelerator, including the setup of a dedicated physical space within the terminal, how the most promising participants can then get funding from AdR Ventures, the firm’s own venture capital arm and, last but not least, how its airports and those in the Airports 4 Innovations network provide a real-world launchpad to test new products and ideas.

Tune in for a deep dive into the world of airport technology acceleration!

Richard Gaona is one of the key players in the global executive aviation industry.

The once president of Airbus’ Executive Aircraft division is currently leading one of the most unique operators in the highly sophisticated world of private aviation.

Richard is the President and CEO of Comlux, a company like no other.

The uniqueness of Comlux is not due to the fact that it operates at the highest end of a market.

No, even if its fleet includes some of the world’s largest and most luxurious private jets and its customer list, some of the world’s most successful businessmen, artists, sportsmen, heads of state and royalty, this is not the main reason it stands out from the pack.

What sets Comlux apart is the its rather holistic approach combining under its umbrella pretty much all the services that a private jet owner may need: from aircraft trading and brokerage, to cabin completions, from maintenance and technical services to on-demand charters and aircraft management.

What’s more, not content with that, Comlux has also been instrumental in the design of a new aircraft type, the Airbus TwoTwenty, which has de facto created a new category within the executive jet industry.

In this episode of the podcast, done in partnership with Comlux, Richard Gaona shares some insights about the fascinating and exclusive world in which Comlux operates in: the top tier of corporate aviation.

But with Richard we also talk extensively about the new TwoTwenty aircraft, the corporate version of the state-of-the-art A220 airliner, a project that is very dear to him, since Comlux has had a major role in its development from its inception.

The idea behind the TwoTwenty is that you can combine the economic and operational performance of a purpose-built business jet, with the spaciousness of an airliner.

Comlux delivered (and operates) the first TwoTwenty to Dubai based luxury hospitality group FIVE in the Spring of 2023 and will be fitting the cabins of the next sixteen of the type that Airbus produces.

So, tune in for an in-depth conversation about one of the most fascinating companies operating right now in commercial aviation!

Jay Sorensen is one of the world’s top experts in airline ancillaries.

Every year, Jay’s firm, IdeaWorksCompany, produces a comprehensive report about the state of airline ancillaries, a piece of work that has become the reference in this field, the Yearbook of Ancillary Revenue.

As someone that tried to read IdeaWork’s ancillaries yearbook as soon as it comes out, I was keen to have Jay on the podcast to talk about this very important component of many airlines’ business model.

What are the ancillaries that are driving the most revenue? Which ancillaries are now focusing the attention of the airlines? Is it realistic to think of airlines, first and foremost, as retailers, as some in the industry pretend?

We talk about all these matters and some more on this week’s episode of the podcast…!

Addison Ferrell is Director, Infrastructure and Head of Americas at Skyports, one of the world’s leading vertiport developers.

Vertiports will be an essential element of the upcoming advanced air mobility revolution. Will they be more like airports or like metro stations? What sort of experience can we expect to have there are travellers? What are the barriers of entry in this sector?

These are all questions I wanted to ask an expert like Addison, because there is still so much of the advanced air mobility experience that is still pretty much being defined as we speak.

In this regard, Skyport’s vision emerges as being particularly relevant, since the firm is active in all continents and has been involved in some of the most advanced projects in this field, such as the one taking shape in Dubai, to connect the Emirate’s main nodes with a network of vertiports.

So, tune in for a fascinating conversation with one of the experts that is actively shaping the future of the advanced air mobility experience!

The seaplane industry could not remain off trend.

Electrification is driving a wave of innovation in aviation and George Alafinov, the scion of a family of seaplane designers, is making sure it does not skip one of the oldest branches of the industry.

True, seaplanes may have fallen out of fashion in the post-war years. The advent of the jet era, the availability of airports on land and the maintenance requirements of aircraft operating in salty water led to this category of aircraft being sidelined. But Jekta’s founder is taking a new approach, using composites and electric propulsion to create the seaplane of the future.

In this episode of the podcast we discuss the pros and cons of seaplanes with George Alafinov and we talk also about the large order Jekta recently secured in India, where regional aviation is on the rise.

Tune in to learn how Jekta is pioneering technologies that could lead to a seaplane renaissance at a time when the industry is looking for versatile, clean and efficient aircraft for regional air transport

Marc Piette is the founder and CEO of Xwing, a California-based company that is developing a system that allows aircraft to fly fully autonomously, from gate to gate without human intervention.

This may sounds like science-fiction to some, but it is certainly not. Already back in 2021, Xwing demonstrated this technology by successfully completing one of such autonomous flights.

This is a potentially disruptive technology that I was very curious to learn more about, so I invited Marc to the podcast to try to understand a bit better what they are doing at Xwing.

in our conversation, we review the basics of autonomous flight and the technologies that Xwing is developing and integrating to make it possible. We also talk about Marc’s entrepreneurial journey, from the moment he arrived in the US from Belgium, his trajectory in the tech industry and the foundation and growth of Xwing.

Tune in for a fascinating chat about what could be the future of aviation several years and decades from now!

Things we talk about in this episode:

Jenny’s professional background

What is Cranfield Aerospace Solutions

What is the relationship between Cranfield Aerospace Solutions and Cranfield University

Why Cranfield Aerospace Solutions has pivoted towards the search for sustainable technologies in aviation

The Britten-Norman deal

Project Fresson

The role of Cranfield Aerospace Solutions in the UK’s sustainable aviation ecosystem

As used as I am in reviewing all sorts of innovative ideas in aviation, the concept that Magpie Aviation presented a few weeks ago really caught my eye.

Is this even possible? This was my first reaction when learning about the system to get an electric aircraft to tow, mid-air, a passenger aircraft to its destination that the guys at Magpie have devised.

Fortunately, I had met Magpie’s Damon Vander Lind and Andy Goessling, CEO and CTO of Magpie, respectively, at an event in Nice just a few days prior.

So, I got in touch to try to get them on the podcast asap in order to learn more about this truly original concept to decarbonize aviation.

So, I was on the line with, Damon and Andy, shortly after and the result is this podcast episode, where we talk about this revolutionary concept, its pros and cons and how Magpie Aviation plans to bring it to fruition.

By the way, they also share some details about the real flight tests they conducted recently over the Nevada desert (see video in the show notes).

So, don’t miss today’s episode if you wish to get a glimpse of what out-of-the-box thinking really means when it comes to tackling the problem of emissions in the aviation industry!