First service announced for electric plane

WELLINGTON: Air New Zealand has announced Wellington to Marlborough will be the first route for its first allelectric aircraft, the Beta ALIA.

It will begin cargoonly NZ Post flights on the route in 2026.

In December 2023, Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran said that sustainable aviation fuels would be crucial to decarbonising the airline’s networks, and nextgeneration aircraft would have the potential to decarbonise regional operations.

The Beta ALIA aircraft is a crucial step towards lower emissions. Figures published in 2023 showed 12% of New Zealand’s carbon emissions were from aviation, compared to the world average of just 2.8%.

Air New Zealand’s chief sustainability officer Kiri Hannifin told Morning Report that nearly all airports nationwide had expressed an interest in securing the route.

‘‘Obviously it’s an electric plane, so it needs to have charging facilities, and somewhere to maintain it and look after it, so some engineering facilities.’’

Air New Zealand hoped the flight would go several times a day between the two airports.

‘‘It’s a short hop, and the charging, we think, will be quite short. So we are hoping it will go six to eight times a day.’’

The freightonly flight was being used as a test run.

‘‘This is just a very small step in what will be a more significant piece of work, to see what sort of passenger planes we could bring in that would be lowercarbon planes. It’s unlikely that our passenger planes will be fully electric . . . they are more likely to be hydrogen.

‘‘What we do need to make sure is that we’ve got a regulatory system in New Zealand that supports us. So it’s great that the regulator is in Wellington as well.’’

Mr Hannifin also said that it was important to have airports involved because it needed a ‘‘whole ecosystem’’ to bring a new fleet of aircraft in.

‘‘We want New Zealanders also to feel comfortable, so part of the next couple of years is for New Zealanders to see that it [electric planes] is safe.’’ — RNZ