“We want to focus on replacing that existing market until we can really create a mass market offering with dedicated vertiports, because with more aircraft coming in, we’ll need more charging stations and parking lots," Lilium's Sebastien Borel said at EBACE 2024.
GENEVA—Lilium has refined its approach to commercialization through an early focus on premium customers, a business sector the company believes is well suited for early adoption, while the mass market will take longer to mature.
Standing beside a full-scale mockup of a premium-edition Lilium Jet at the European Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition here, Chief Commercial Officer Sebastien Borel said that targeting the premium market will allow the German startup to market its Lilium Jet as a quieter and more efficient replacement to on-demand helicopter services that cater to wealthier and business flyers.
He also emphasized how focusing on the premium market early on will allow Lilium to avoid the need for widescale deployment of infrastructure, including dedicated vertiports, that will be required to accommodate the mass commercial market.
“The premium segment exists,” Borel said. “You have a lot of helicopters flying around today. When we look at that model, it’s mostly either aircraft management or charter service, and we have the option to do a fractional ownership model as well through our relationship with NetJets.
“By introducing the aircraft on existing flight routes—because there are [visual flight rules] corridors and helicopter routes in many places—we don’t have to change a lot of the ecosystem as a prerequisite to launching service,” Borel noted. “We want to focus on replacing that existing market until we can really create a mass market offering with dedicated vertiports, because with more aircraft coming in, we’ll need more charging stations and parking lots. So that’s why we’re focusing the introduction on the premium segment as we are preparing for the mass market to mature.”
Borel also drew a distinction between the Lilium Jet Pioneer Edition–the limited-edition product targeted for personal use by high-net-worth individuals—with the premium version Lilium Jet, which the company plans to sell as a permanent product line alongside the standard commercial variant.
Both the premium and pioneer edition Lilium Jets will have room for four passengers and more spacious cabins, compared with six passengers on the Lilium Jet.
Of the 50 Pioneer Edition jets that Lilium plans to build, between 35 and 40 have been sold so far, according to Borel.
“Only the Pioneer Edition is limited, but the standard premium edition will be sold hopefully for years to come,” he said. “We see it as a very safe and steady market. . . . So we don’t only plan to introduce the aircraft in the premium segment, but we believe that it will continue as a product line for hopefully many years to come.”
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