The Allplane Podcast

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!

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!