Podcast: What's Happening At EBACE 2024

Aviation Week's team is reporting live from Geneva, Switzerland, where the 2024 edition of EBACE is being held. 

Listen in as host Jeremy Kariuki is joined by Angus Batey, Thierry Dubois, Ben Goldstein and Molly McMillin to discuss their highlights from the show.

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Transcript

Jeremy Kariuki:

Welcome to the BCA Podcast. We are live from Geneva, Switzerland, at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition, and we have been very busy this show. Even though there's been less exhibitors and less OEMs and what have you at the show, there's still been plenty of news that is worth talking about. That's exactly what we're here to do.

I'm joined by my colleagues, Angus Batey, Thierry Dubois, Molly McMillin, and Ben Goldstein. Welcome everyone to the show.

Ben Goldstein:

Hi.

Thierry Dubois:

Hi.

Jeremy Kariuki:

All right, Angus, first with you. What have you seen around the show and what has been so notable to include?

Angus Batey:

Well, as you say, Jeremy, the first thing to note is that it's much smaller than we're used to seeing. There are fewer people here. We're hearing from the exhibitors that are here that it's an expensive show to be at. It's time-consuming. And if there are fewer people coming and fewer other exhibitors taking part, then there are questions for those folks over the value of being here.

Now, on the other hand, we're also hearing on-the-record conversations from exhibitors who are perfectly happy with what's going on and are finding that the quality of the engagements that they are having are very good.

Thierry Dubois:

As you just said, Angus, many exhibitors privately, but in a converging way, complain about the pricing and the fact that the end-user is no longer present at EBACE. And some exhibitors even complain on the record that they cannot see the suppliers anymore or fewer suppliers, which they used to talk to at EBACE. So they still see a value in the show, but that value has been questioned.

Angus Batey:

Another thing that, I think an important thing that is also unavoidable here, and partly because of last year and the disruption that we all heard about and some of us saw with protests, the environmental sustainability, low-emissions flight, both future possibilities and what's possible to do now is front and center in a way that even at previous EBACEs is where this has been very high profile, I think it's unprecedented to the extent at which that is a dominant theme here this week.

Thierry Dubois:

To elaborate on the cost issue, the Swiss franc, as we are in Geneva, is not helping so there has been a discussion about where to hold EBACE in the future. Should it be elsewhere in Europe, for instance? Should more than one city be considered, and maybe cities could alternate between, I don't know, one city in Belgium and one city elsewhere. Major exhibitor, major OEM, suggested off-the-record that they could attend every other year so there plenty of questioning going on.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Thierry, you thought a lot about hydrogen, hydrogen-powered aircraft. How is that going along and what kind of developments have been made thus far?

Thierry Dubois:

One notable exhibitor here is called Beyond Aero. It's a French startup and I have to say that I found very impressive. That doesn't mean I'm saying they are going to be successful because it's such a challenging project.

So far what they have done and what I find impressive is that in just a few years they flew a demonstrator, which means it's a very light aircraft, ultra light aircraft, which they modified with an electric motor and a fuel cell to feed the electric motor with electricity. Fuel cell relies on hydrogen and they flew about 10 take-offs and two complete flights. Now they are designing a business aircraft that would carry about six, eight passengers and go as far as 800 or 1000 nautical miles.

They still have a long way to go. It's not a full program yet. But again, I find these guys impressive with the amount of money they've raised. Even though 24 million euros is not enough for the full development of business jet, I mean, it's still a nice start and they have highly skilled engineers.

Jeremy Kariuki:

And Molly, I'm sure you've seen a lot of developments here at EBACE. What have you seen that is worth talking about?

Molly McMillin:

I've seen quite a bit back on the sustainability issue, though, for a while and with Thierry's comments about this company that he just spoke about is clear about the technology and Ben will talk about that. But as part of the sustainability information and message that they're very clear that it's really, this is where the business aviation industry is where the technology really happens and the airlines are later in developing it. And as Ed Bolen, who has head of NBAA said yes, said this week that the innovation comes first here, i.e. Winglet's composite technology, the adoption of GPS, a lot of the early adoptions of things get done here and I think this show has been a good example of that.

On a different note, I had a conversation with MedAire and they have just partnered with a company called OdiliaClark to offer peer support for pilots, flight attendants, dispatchers, the support people also. The airlines have been good about having kind of a peer-to-peer session for mental health. If you may think that, "Am I normal? I'm not sleeping," or you have a problem you'd like to talk to someone before you get someone else involved and do it quietly so it's anonymous. They have partnered with MedAire to offer it to the business aviation community.

So that's just getting kicked off and just introduced here, which is needed. I think the FAA came out a few weeks ago with a bigger focus on mental health. I mean, this was in the works before that, but it's another outlet to support people with mental health issues or curious if they have a mental health issue or if they need something.

Thierry Dubois:

As we can hear from Molly's comment, even though there are fewer exhibitors, the quality of engagement is great. We are meeting highly, highly interesting people, and the conference program here at EBACE is full of good things to choose from.

Jeremy Kariuki:

To continue that sustainability topic, Ben, I know you've been covering a lot of AAM and UAM developments. What has been going on here at EBACE today?

Ben Goldstein:

Yeah. Not a huge roster of AAM companies, but there are several notable ones who are in attendance. Most of these, interestingly, are not UAM or urban air mobility, but they're regional air mobility or RAM startups, which seems to be a trend we see in business aviation, particularly among some of the second wave AAM startups.

So a few of the companies that are here, probably the biggest player, most well-known is Lilium, a German startup developing their eVTOL for regional air mobility. We also have VoltAero, a French startup, which is doing a conventional takeoff and landing aircraft with a hybrid propulsion system. We have Vaeridion doing a slightly larger nine-seat conventional all-electric aircraft. And we have Skybus, which is a very ambitious startup that is developing large eVTOLs in the actually up to 40 passengers. For the business of travel variant, it would be 19 passengers in a slightly more spacious cabin, but it's certainly one of the most largest and ambitious eVTOL companies.

So I thought it was interesting that we have a variety of AAM startups, all with different kinds of architectures, different propulsion systems. SkyBus notably also has hybrid hydrogen fuel cell propulsion so we see a lot of different concepts.

But what's interesting to me is that most of the AAM players here are focused on that regional mobility, so using electric aviation or hybrid electric to bring down the operating costs and be able to do more point-to-point intercity travel of relatively small distances because this technology is still in its early stages.

But like I said, that's a contrast to what we've seen with a lot of the focus on urban travel, especially from companies like Joby and Archer, which have gotten a lot of attention so I thought that was an interesting trend. So a lot of interesting tech here and very exciting stuff for the future.

Angus Batey:

I think to your point, the regional thing, this is an area where business aviation is perhaps being more realistic in thinking about how these future technologies might be adopted because that's a realistic mission set. Whereas the intercity thing, you'd expect that the providers of charter helicopter flights would be really worried about that if they looked at these short-range city-to-city flights or airport-to-city hops. But you talked to people like, as I did the earlier this week, Airbus corporate helicopters, and they appear entirely unconcerned about competition in the short-to-medium term from eVTOL providers.

Thierry Dubois:

Ben, do you see advanced air mobility as complementary or future competitor of established business aircraft manufacturers?

Ben Goldstein:

Perhaps both. I think we're going to see business aircraft manufacturers, and we already are seeing them like in the case of perhaps Textron with their e-aviation segment getting into advanced air mobility, either developing clean-sheet vehicles or through retrofits of existing aircraft types.

But yeah, I think it's going to compete both with existing business travel, but also could stimulate new business air travel that is currently maybe not economic to do and is ground transportation or by rail. So we could actually stimulate new demand at the same time that we're decarbonizing existing demand, which is I think a very exciting application.

And just by contrast, the urban air mobility I don't think has the same potential to decarbonize aviation to the same extent because that is really creating a new market where one does not already exist. So I think regional air mobility as far as both pragmatism, but also purely a sustainability focus is perhaps a superior near-term value proposition.

Jeremy Kariuki:

All right.

Molly McMillin:

I was going to say that that is an example of, bringing all that back to sustainability and business aviation being at the forefront and the measures that they have already done, but their goal for Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050, this is a heavy regulated industry, and so all the players as they work to bring down carbon emissions and meet that goal, still work under the auspices of the regulations and sometimes it's a difficult situation as an industry.

Jeremy Kariuki:

Absolutely. As we record right now, there's scheduled to be a protest here at the show, a sanctioned protest following last year's unsanctioned incursion at the static flight display, where aircraft were damaged upon protesters attaching themselves to planes, whether it be by glue, by chain, or what have you. I think sustainability in terms of public perception is a very important aspect that EBACE or EBACE, that's the show, but EBAA and the NBAA as organizations have been focusing on because it's, as they say, half the battle. They have to win over the detractors that want to really just eradicate the business aviation industry. But there's a lot of technology that, as we've discussed, is being developed in this corner that's going to be, at some point, extrapolated to the rest of the aviation industry as a whole.

But, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today. Angus, Thierry, Molly, Ben, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been a pleasure covering this with you.

If you would like to see more coverage of EBACE and the rest of the shows that we cover, you can visit us at aviationweek.com/shownews. Please wherever you listen, be sure to like, follow or subscribe. If you would like to support the show, please leave us a rating if you enjoyed this show. That's all we have for today. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time.