Electric planes pegged to restore regional flights

Aircraft industry is about to enter a new era

An aerospace firm announced Wednesday it is developing electric aircraft to get travelers out of their cars and into planes for regional commercial flights of up to 1,000 miles.

Kirkland, Wash.-based Zunum Aero is working with Boeing HorizonX, an arm of the jet manufacture that invests in innovative technology, and JetBlue Technology Ventures to develop 10- to 50-seat aircraft for flights that could begin in the early 2020s. The goal is to return flights to smaller communities that lost air service during the last 30 years as regional airlines consolidated routes aboard larger aircraft.

“We believe that the industry is on the cusp of a golden era on regional air,” Zunum CEO Ashish Kumar told USA TODAY. “Air used to be a much larger factor of the travel over these distances.”

Despite flying lower and slower than airliners, Zunum officials hope to cut airfares and overall travel times in half with more-efficient planes flying mostly out of general-aviation airports. Passengers would carry their luggage straight from their cars to the planes, rather than pass through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints.

“The cabin is designed to bring all your bags on board,” Kumar said. “It’s much more like a bus or a train.”

Zunum, which was founded in 2013, plans to pair airframes from a choice of dozens of manufacturers worldwide with batteries developed for cars, to create aircraft that are more efficient than jet-fueled planes. A generator will be on board for backup power or longer flights, Kumar said.

Zunum hasn’t specified which airframes or batteries still under development will be used. But the company holds patents on powertrain, propulsors and wing-integrated batteries.

“The aircraft we are flying in the early 2020s could be based on component technologies today,” Kumar said.

But analysts say the schedule is optimistic.

Richard Aboulafia, who analyzes aviation as a vice president of Teal Group Corp., said 2050 might be a better estimate than the early 2020s for when electric planes will take to the skies in large numbers. Most planes are designed around the engine, and these would be built around the batteries, which are not yet capable of delivering the power necessary for motors or fans to keep larger aircraft aloft, he said.

Zunum sees a market for the planes to fly routes that regional airlines have abandoned.

For trips up to 500 miles, nearly all travelers (95.4%) drive and almost nobody (1.6%) flies, according to a 2006 National Household Travel Survey by the Transportation Department. The balance begins to shift at 500 to 750 miles, with 61.2% driving and 33.7% flying. For trips from 750 to 1,000 miles, a majority of 55.2% fly and 42.3% still drive.

Part of the reason for staying behind the wheel is because of time-consuming aspects around flying. The flights could be appealing — even for heavily traveled routes from Boston to Washington, D.C. — for the same reason that people ride Amtrak in the Northeast corridor.

“Our ability to identify, shape and harness game-changing innovations wherever they are developed is key to sustaining and growing our leadership in aerospace,” Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said.

A trip with a direct flight up to 500 miles takes the average traveler three and a half hours when counting the drives to and from the airports, and the time spent in the terminal and on the plane, according to a 2003 federal study. A traveler spends nearly four and a half hours on all parts of a trip with a direct flight up to 1,000 miles, according to the study from the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

“There’s where we’re stepping in,” Kumar said. “What’s really killing you is the ground time.”

But Aboulafia also has “extremely strong skepticism” about routes from smaller communities providing enough revenue to support regular commercial flights. For efficiency, fuel-sipping, single-engine turbo-props are already available, he said.

“There is no economic reason to fly these routes for the most part,” he said. “You’re competing with the family car on these routes. Battery or turbine, the family car still wins.”

“You’re competing with the family car on these routes.” Richard Aboulafia, who analyzes aviation as a vice president of Teal Group Corp.