SUSTAINABLE AVIATION operator, innovator and disruptor, keynote speaker.
CHALLENGE ME ON THIS - eVTOL Aircraft are little more than a wireless extended-range cable car. Electric aircraft in General are not much different. They have a similar dependency on established ground infrastructure to support a specific A-B route. Once you understand this, you can start to effectively plan a realistic business use case for 2-6 seat electric air travel. Some hyper inflated electric aviation startups don't understand this, and they are burning millions in investor money to find it out the hard way. The global market for cable cars and ropeways was estimated to be worth US\$5 billion in 2023, and is projected to grow to US\$9.4 billion by 2030. Imaging 10x ing the range without the cost of erecting the cables. This is big business. But the ground hardware requirements to activate a route are substantial. Few know this as well as Fly On E Sustainable Aviation, who operates both electric and non electric passenger aircraft and charter operations in Australia. Let the debate begin... (AI image obvs)
Ulrich Dembinski
1mo
If you can prove equal level of safety for the replacement of cable and ground infrastructure you are right. Unfortunately, if you leave this infrastructure out, you are talking about an (unsuspended) aircraft. Then you are talking billions for certification (10EE-9 catastrophes per flighthour). Believe me, cable car maintenance is cheaper over the lifetime.
Gary Vermaak
1mo
Thanks for bringing up the other Urban Air Mobility. Both certainly have a place as one is ideally suited to short fixed routes and the other to longer urban and regional routes. They also complement each other.
Stefan B
1mo
Great perspective
Airline & Airport Principal Analyst | Pricing | Revenue Management | Loyalty | Aircraft Interiors | Pax Ex | Branding | Fleet & Network | Editor of Airline Revenue Economics | Available for consulting through Ink+
1moChallenge accepted! 🙂 The key difference is flexibility. 10 cable cars on 10 difference lines offer one car per line for a total of ten possible services. 10 eVTOLs on 10 vertiports offer a much large number of possible services. [Maths check - I might be being dim but is it 10 squared = 100 or is it 10P10 = 3.6 million, or is it something else, it's a long time since I needed to calculate these things?]. Want to send all your eVTOL capacity at once to the airport? Or the hospital? Or the events venue? No problem. You cannot do that with the cable car. So eVTOL should have much higher revenue potential than the cable car as they can be moved around to match demand. This should mean that the ground investment is more likely to pay off. What do you think Korum?