The Allplane Podcast

When British airline Flybe folded during the covid pandemic, Josef Mouris had the chance to devote 100% of his energies to the project that had been long time in his mind.

This former Dash Q400 pilot founded Electron, an electric flight startup. Although at first Josef was looking at the actual flying-operational part of the business, he soon realized that the hardware wasn’t quite there yet. So, Electron pivoted to developing its own fully electric aircraft.

The idea is that these light powered aircraft capable of seating 4 passengers will provide a convenient, green and relatively cheap solution for many journeys that currently involve cumbersome itineraries through airports or long overland routes.

In this episode of the podcast, Josef shares his entrepreneurial journey as well as some details of the Electron 5, the aircraft he is developing (and of which already a smaller 2-seater demonstrator exists) as well as of this growth plans.

Tune in for a fascinating conversation with one of the people that are working hard to redefine the future of air mobility and bring forth the advent of zero carbon flying.

Addison Schonland is the co-founder and manager of AirInsight, a digital platform that tracks the commercial aviation industry through a combination of media content and analytical tools.

Addison is one of the most knowledgeable people I know about the state of the aviation industry and he was also one of the very first guests of this podcast when I was just getting it off the ground.

It’s been a while since then and quite a lot has happened in the world, so I thought it was a good idea to call Addison and get him back on the show for another in-depth conversation.

On this episode we cover quite a lot of ground. Addison shares his views on a number of hot topics in the industry, discussing trends in aircraft development and procurement as well as some of the latest moves by established operators and entrepreneurs in areas such as sustainable aviation and new aircraft concepts.

So, tune in for this long, insightful chat about the present and future of the commercial aviation industry and the main strategic considerations its different actors have to play with.

Felipe Varon started thinking about drones more than 20 years ago when it was far from being a fashionable topic. A lot has changed since then and nowadays there is no shortage of startups working in the field of advanced air mobility (AAM).

While there is no shortage of startups designing new cool eVTOL aircraft, Varon, the firm that Felipe leads, is looking at the broader picture.

In its holistic approach, Varon aims to build the value chain that should allow eVTOLs to take off in Latin America, a region where the potential is notorious, due to the deficiencies in physical transport infrastructure as well as the complicated orography of some countries, like Felipe’s native Colombia.

Varon aims to set the basis of the ecosystem that will need to be in place for advanced air mobility services to become a reality and this is the reason that Felipe defines his project primarily as an infrastructure firm.

In this vertically integrated approach Varon would operate both the vertiports and the fleets that will move people around in several Colombian cities, starting by the seaside city of Cartagena and from there expanding to the rest of the continent. The aircraft would be provided by partner OEMs such as, for example, Jaunt Air Mobility. Tourism would provide the vector for the introduction of eVTOLs, before moving progressively onto other use cases.

In this episode of the podcast, Felipe shares his vision of a Latin America in which advanced air mobility helps sort out many of the regional chronical issues with the lack of adequate infrastructure and we talk about how he plans to do it.

Tune in to zoom into one of the regions of the world that aims to benefit the most from the eVTOL revolution!

In addition to being a long-time aviation executive and entrepreneur, Paul Perera is, perhaps, one of the most prolific experts out there when it comes to disseminating interesting insights and relevant stories in the domain of aviation sustainability.

Paul is active in the field of hydrogen aviation through, Fluxart, a UK-based startup he co-founded to develop cryogenic motor technology which can boost the performance of hydrogen-powered propulsion systems.

On today’s episode Paul will share some details about how this technology works and its prospects in the near future. And, as it couldn’t be otherwise, we also chat about the broader hydrogen aviation landscape and, most particularly, the efforts to make of the UK a hydrogen-aviation powerhouse.

In the fourth and last episode of this airlines and software cycle, produced in collaboration with SITA for Aircraft, we present you a comprehensive, holistic view of how digital, data-driven tools have become increasingly important to get further efficiency improvements out of airline operations.

Sometimes it’s a relatively small thing, such as not having to carry several kilograms of paper in a flight bag, sometimes it’s truly sophisticated stuff, such as predicting the presence of ice crystals along the flight path with millimetrical precision or calculating the exact optimal flight path among tens of thousands of possible alternatives, but in any of these cases algorithms are the ultimate performance booster.

Tune in to learn about the multiple ways big data and the right software can help you fly better!

Our guest today is Kemal Ahmed, who leads Digital Day of Operations applications at SITA for Aircraft, covering several areas of importance for airline operations, from aircraft to ground communications to weather-optimized flight planning. Kemal provides us with an overview of his work in this field and how the contribution of software to make airline operations more sustainable can not be overlooked.

Simon I. Briceno is the chief commercial officer at Jaunt Air Mobility, an interesting advanced air mobility startup with a rather unique approach: a hybrid eVTOL with fixed wing and a rotorcraft.

Why this unusual configuration? Simon shares some details about the advantages of this approach and how Jaunt’s engineers aim to get the best of both worlds, fixed wing and helicopters, and 100% electric!

Tune in to learn more about this fascinating project that aims to launch in North America as early as 2026.

Keith Mason heads the Centre for Air Transport Management at Cranfield University, in the UK, one of the world’s top, if not THE top, education centers for aviation studies.

Professionals from all over the world head to this educational establishment in the middle of England to learn, research and breathe aviation.

Cranfield University offers graduate degrees covering both the technical and business sides of aviation and it is also heavily involved in some of the most cutting edge research programmes that are right now ongoing in areas such as sustainable aviation and airline digitalization.

Keith Mason has been on the podcast to share some insights about the work that they do at Cranfield and how is it like to study there.

Australian startup Avation H2 is working on an ammonia-powered aircraft. On this episode of the podcast, its co-founder and director, Helmut Mayer, joins us to share the details of this project and discuss the prospects of ammonia as a potential aviation fuel of the future!

TIACA is the International Air Cargo Association, an organization that gathers many of the global players in this industry.

We are talking, literally, about keeping the world’s economy running, no small feat at a time, like now, of severe supply chain constraints. This is no excuse, however, for the industry to shy away from meeting certain environmental and social standards that can help make the world a better place.

This is why TIACA recently launched BlueSky, a programme for every operator in the air cargo supply chain to align with a number of industry’s ESG best practices and to get efforts in this direction verified and recognized by stakeholders, industry peers and the broader society.

So, I have invited TIACA’s director general, Glyn Hughes, to come to the podcast and explain in detail how this whole BlueSky programme works.

You can tell from the passionate way in which Glyn shares his insights about this project how BlueSky is a major deal for the air cargo industry and a significant step forward in setting ESG standards for all operators that are active moving goods by air around the globe.

Tune in for an insightful chat about the way the air cargo industry is approaching ESG and making sure that efforts towards sustainability and social improvements across the supply chain are properly recognized!

Did you know that the first NFT airline ticket ever minted attracted bids worth over $1M at auction?

This was a special ticket minted for Air Europa, a Spanish airline that is issuing 10 special NFTickets to fly people from Madrid to Art Miami this coming Autumn.

But besides the hype and the catchy headlines, blockchain technology has several potentially disruptive uses in the air travel sector, of which we are just starting to scratch the surface.

Facundo Diaz is the co-founder of TravelX, a blockchain tech firm that is exploring ways to turn airline tickets into smart contracts that support a whole range of uses.

Tune in for a fascinating conversation at the frontier of travel tech!