Insight – The electric aircraft bandwagon

Airlines are jumping on the electric-powered aircraft bandwagon. Deals are announced, it seems, every month. But none of the aircraft they have ordered have been tested, like the Eviation Alice, while another - the Heart Aerospace ES-30 - is not even built. Why the surge in interest? And why are North American airlines like United, Mesa, Cape Air, GlobalX, and Air Canada so interested? The first reason is probably to be seen as doing the "right thing" - net zero and all that. Greenwashing is the fad these days. Anyone following this industry for any length knows the decisions being made are driven by cold, hard, economics. Behind the "right thing" is actually a lot of "smart things". Electric-powered aircraft means thinking about a maximum range of 500 nautical miles/926 kilometers with current battery technology. The updated Heart ES-30 that was unveiled last week can't do this distance on battery-only power, despite a bulgy battery pack under the fuselage. It needs two turbo generators and surrenders five of its 30-seat capacity to get there. Eviation promises a 400 nm range with the Alice but flies full-electric with just nine passengers. Looking at the US market for that range gives a good idea of why US airlines are jumping on the bandwagon. The chart below might look less than promising. The 2022 data is through June. But there is clearly a trend going down. Flights of under 500 miles are shrinking. This is why, in part, US regionals are cutting back on smaller communities. It is a tough place to make a living. In 2000 over 50 percent of US flights were in the < 500-mile category. In 2022 it is at 42 percent. Keep in mind that pilot shortage, which has left a lot of regional airline capacity grounded, plays a role in this trend. Take a look at the same trend from another perspective. The red line shows the decline in flights, but the columns show a steady rise in passengers per flight. There may be some concentration happening. What does the data tell us about this? Looking at markets with a maximum stage length of 500 miles, we do indeed see a sweet spot at ~300 miles. No shock to see the concentration around the big hubs. How are these passengers being moved? The following chart shows the breakdown of aircraft types deployed. About two-thirds are flown on single-aisles and about a third on regional jets. Market Demand and Range Breaking out the data by splitting the traffic by airline type we get the following. The highlighted numbers show how the market changed recently. As some airlines disappeared during the pandemic, others stepped in to take up the traffic. Another sign of concentration. What does the data suggest? The electric-powered airplane can easily handle the range. Last week, we saw Heart Aerospace announce its intention to upsize its new aircraft. Heart is a strong contender in the segment, having won commitments from United and Mesa for a combined 200 aircraft in 2021, with Air Canada announcing a purchase agreement for thirty last Thursday. Eviation got an LoI from GlobalX for fifty Alice aircraft on the same day, having already received an LoI from Cape Air for 75 in April. The leader in the <500 regional aircraft segment is Embraer. They have a great lineup under development. Notice how the Embraer Energia comes in various sizes. The proposed ranges are between 200 and 500 miles. In range terms, the proposed electric and hybrid-powered solutions work. Officially, Energia is still a technology program, but the Brazilians are keen to launch the four full-electric, hybrid-electric, or hydrogen aircraft somewhere in the next decade. With Norwegian regional airline Wideroe, it has a strong partner that is fully committed to the project and is actively assisting Embraer on the Energia Advisory Group to mature the designs. Economics How about the economics of electric aircraft? The table below lists the US airline industry operating economics by aircraft type. One can readily see why smaller markets are losing air service. Smaller markets don't have the traffic volume and pricing to offset rising costs. Current aircraft technology, it appears, must focus on the larger markets within the 500-mile range to operate profitably. As noted here, thermal efficiency is a key issue. Turboprops might be around 27 percent in thermal efficiency whereas an electric motor might be over 90 percent. An academic study published in Sweden, notes in its abstract: "The study performed on six routes disclosed how the assumption of the total operating cost for electric aircraft to be cheaper is true based on the cost calculations. The total cost of electric aircraft is between 15 to 22 percent cheaper than the operating cost for conventional aircraft. The most expensive category for electric aircraft is the ownership cost, which can be reduced through mass production of electric aircraft." Heart Aerospace claimed the ES-19 “will have a similar acquisition price and offer direct operating costs (energy and maintenance) 50–70 percent lower than competing fossil fuel-powered aircraft”. For its successor, the larger ES-30, it published these numbers. The range of lower costs projected is between 15 to 70 percent - a very wide range. If we take a conservative view and project 20 percent in savings, since US airline data shows that fuel costs are ~50 percent of operating costs, we could see an electric aircraft like that of Heart Aerospace offer an operating cost of $30/min compared to a regional jet. Or $53/min compared to a turboprop. Is this sufficient to justify the bandwagon attraction? Airlines are in constant search of every cost-saving they can find. Winglets are an example, and these are saving ~5 percent of fuel burn. In summary, the promise of electric and hybrid-powered aircraft is sufficiently attractive to warrant attention. In terms of engines alone, an electric motor has one moving part whereas turbines have thousands. It is not hard to make the case for an electric motor being cheaper to maintain. At 20 percent in cost savings airlines can re-evaluate markets they have dropped. The bandwagon effect is rational. (Additional reporting by Richard Schuurman)

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