The Allplane Podcast

Think of an aircraft as a blank, giant, 3D canvas, a space for creative expression…

The livery is an essential part of any airline’s branding, in fact you may be able to argue what comes first, whether the livery or the corporate branding…this is one of the aspects of airline livery design that we discuss with our guest today.

Edmond Huot is Chief Creative Officer at Allforward, a media and marketing agency based in New York City. He’s been in charge of the branding and livery design for Northern Pacific Airways, a newly created airline that aims to connect the contiguous US with Asia by way of Alaska.

Edmond gives as a glimpse of what the process to define a new airline brand from scratch looks like: how does it start? how many iterations are needed before you come up with an identity that resonates? how do you translate your drawings into an actual 160ft-long plane?

And last but not least: which are, according to him, the coolest airline liveries of all time?

Tune in for this week’s episode of the podcast!

Zvi Schreiber is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Freightos a digital platform that facilitates the booking of air cargo shipments.

The idea for Freightos came up a few years ago when Zvi was managing a hardware firm that had to ship stuff from Asia to Europe and America and realized then that the process was far from smooth.

When it comes to digitalization, the air cargo industry has lagged behind its passenger-carrying counterpart and this is precisely what Freightos and its Webcargo unit have set to fix.

But besides this inspiring tale of disruption and entrepreneurship, we also talk more generally about the air freight industry, because this is an area of aviation that doesn’t usually enjoy much public visibility.

What are the processes involved in air cargo? Who are the different counterparties involved?

And, very importantly, what have been the effects of covid and war in air logistics? Can air freight alleviate somehow the current strain that global supply chains are experiencing?

Tune in for some great insights about the world of air cargo!

In the third episode of our airline software series, produced in collaboration with SITA for Aircraft, we explore a topic that may sound familiar to the many of you that enjoy spending some time using flight tracking applications.

It is paradoxical that, in an era in which you can monitor air traffic at any time of day or night at the tip of a click from your laptop or your phone screens, not all aircraft are tracked at all time when in flight. The tragic disappearance of the flight MH370 in 2014 brought this paradox to the fore and prompted ICAO to issue the “15 minute” rule that, by 2023, will require all airlines to have systems in place to monitor their aircraft pretty much on an ongoing basis.

What is currently the situation on this front? Are airlines ready to track their aircraft wherever they are? What technologies are there to fulfill this mission?

Albert Domínguez, product manager at SITA for Aircraft, will be today on the podcast to answer all these questions.

Albert is product manager for eWAS Dispatch, SITA for Aircraft flagship product for flight monitoring and analysis, and , as well as of Flight Tracker, a legacy product in the same category. An experienced professional in the field of airline operations software, Albert will give us an overview of the different ways aircraft can communicate with ground control to make sure everything is allright at all times.

Tune in to listen to today’s show!

Within the world of executive aviation, there is an even more exclusive world, that of the large and very large business jets, airliners that have been converted for VIP roles.

A leader in this very unique space, Comlux is a Swiss-based firm that operates

from trading large executive jets, to operating them on behalf of its customers, to taking care of all necessary work for cabin design and fitting.

It is not an exaggeration to say that some of the most luxurious aircraft currently operating in the world have the Comlux imprimt one way or another.

And our guest today, Arnaud Martin, knows this world inside out. Arnaud is the chief strategist at Comlux and has been instrumental in the roll out of a project that has the potential to disrupt the private jet industry, the new TwoTwenty corporate jet unveiled by Airbus a few months ago.

The TwoTwenty is the executive version of the A220 airliner and thanks to its operational performance is able to deliver the comfort of a very large executive jet, with the economics of a purpose-built business jet.

Even if you may not have (yet!) the 70 million dollars to buy one of these, this is a fascinating example of new category creation. Those fortunate enough to be in a position to hesitate between a purpose built business jet and a large airliner can now get the best of both worlds.

So, we have talked with Arnaud about the world of highest end of executive jets. How much does it cost to fly on one of them? What drives the uber-rich to buy one jet or another or how do they chose their favourite cabin interiors.

Tune in for a chat about an industry that is often surrounded by a veil of secrecy!

Today we continue exploring the key role that existing technology, and software in particular, can play in making aviation more sustainable and, generally speaking, more efficient.

In the second episode of this 4-part series produced in collaboration with SITA for Aircraft, François Chazelle, will explain how, as chief commercial officer of Safety Line, a French startup acquired by SITA in 2021, he helped develop a family of software solutions that crunch large amounts of data from multiple sources to come up with recommendations that help airlines and the planet save millions of dollars and a huge amount of carbon emissions.

I found it really interesting that François, now senior product manager at SITA for Aircraft overseeing the OptiFlight family of products, operates at the intersection of three major themes that are defining our time: big data, machine learning and sustainability.

While I was aware of the potential of algorithms to squeeze even more efficiency gains from airliner operations, in this chat François provides a comprehensive overview of how this is done and, also, of what are the barriers preventing a much widespread adoption of this technology.

But, as usual, is it best to hear it from the man himself…without further ado, let me welcome François to the podcast!

Airflow is a Californian startup has been racking orders for its 9-seater eSTOL aircraft, including in its amphibious version!

So, I’ve invited its founder and CEO, Marc Ausman, to the podcast to share some insights about this very promising model and its market perspectives.

Marc is a former US Navy pilot turned entrepreneur. He built and sold an aerospace technology company and has been involved in a number of other innovative projects in the field of telecoms and aviation. He was also chief strategy at Airbus Vahana, the European manufacturer’s early project in the field of advanced air mobility.

In this episode we talk with Marc about this entrepreneurial journey and also about Airflow and how a new generation of electric eSTOL aircraft could, very soon, be disrupting the mobility industry by using already existing and infrautilized infrastructure.

Tune in to learn more about one of the hottest startups right now in the field of sustainable aviation!

Why the aviation industry remains one of the hardest to electrify? Is Lithium-ion the best battery technology for the job? What are the most viable alternatives?

We will try to answer these questions with one of the leading experts in the field of battery science.

Venkat Viswanathan is an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University, where he leads a research lab focusing on aviation and transportation applications of battery technology.

Venkat, who is also an advisor to several green energy firms, has recently co-authored two papers outlining the learnings of his research in this field and explaining why incremental improvement of Li-Ion batteries may not be enough for a more wide-ranging electrification of the aviation industry.

A new paradigm is needed in battery chemistry, one based on new materials and underpinned by novel research and production techniques, involving robotics and machine learning. Lithium-metal batteries and even more advanced combinations that use non-metallic elements may hold the key to the sort of energy density increases that will make the electrification of broader segments of the aviation industry feasible.

In addition to his work at the very edge of this technological frontier, Venkat is also an excellent communicator, able to explain complex scientific concepts in a straightforward and understandable way to broad non-scientific audiences.

It is because of all this that I invite you to check today’s episode out to get a grasp of the current state of battery science and its potential applications in the aviation industry!

oday on the podcast, airline entrepreneur Tomislav Lang is going to explain the concept and business model of Flyv, short for “Fly Virtual”, a new carrier that aims to leverage algorithms and hybrid-electric aircraft to provide a new type of air mobility service in Europe.

Having managed, for a number of years, Swiss regional airline Skywork, Tomislav knows well the European air mobility space, this led him to explore some ideas to launch a new type of airline that, rather than competing with the Lufthansas and Ryanairs of this world, links, instead, the many second, third or even fourth tier airports between themselves.

On this episode of the podcast Tomislav explains how the team at Flyv is confident that the combination of algorithms, that will allow it to allocate and adjust capacity across the network on a constant and. very flexible basis, and the economics of a new generation of hybrid-electric aircraft, such as the 9-seater being developed by Electra.aero, will give it an edge in capturing a share of this latent market.

How regional air travel may look like in Europe several years from now? Tune in for today’s episode of the podcast with Flyv founder, Tomislav Lang!

Our guest today, Vishal Hiremath, has been working in the aviation sector for quite some time and it was precisely during one of those professional assignments, at Honda Jet that he realized there was plenty of potential in this small but very capable and versatile aircraft manufactured by the aerospace branch of the famous Japanese firm. This led him to co-found Jet It, together with his business partner Glenn Gonzales. Jet It is a fractional jet ownership company that is based on a fleet of Honda Jet aircraft. After initial success in the US, they have now expanded to Canada and hopped across the Atlantic to Europe, where it operates under the Jet Club brand.

The chance to learn more about this interesting little aircraft, that I have had the chance to examine, on occasion, from up close at air shows, piqued my curiosity, but what finally decided me to reach out to the founders of Jet It/JetClub to get them on the podcast is the fact that they are already looking beyond this original Honda Jet focus and preparing to go electric.

Earlier in 2021, Jet It announced it is going to become the launch customer for the Bye eFlyer 800, a sleek, disruptive all-electric aircraft that, with lower costs and no emissions, aims to disrupt the private flying scene (we have had the chance to cover on a previous podcast how executive aviation can be a test bank for new ideas and technologies!)

Tune in for our chat with Vishal, in which we talk (despite some technical difficulties, we recorded it on mobile during a car trip) on about his entrepreneurial journey, how to build an executive aviation business that is active on both sides of the Atlantic and also how he is preparing his company to enter the new era of fossil-free aviation!