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Loganair is Scotland’s primary regional airline, which means many of its daily flights are relatively short hops of 100 miles or less. That means they are ideal for a short-haul electric airplane like the ALIA CX300 manufactured by BETA Technologies. Recently, Loganair agreed to purchase five of those airplanes, which could make it Europe’s first commercial airline to integrate fully electric aircraft into its scheduled operations. An option to purchase an additional five aircraft is included in the agreement. The CX300 uses existing runways and does not require special vertiport infrastructure. With BETA’s fast charging systems, the aircraft can be recharged in 20 to 40 minutes.
The test flights included Royal Mail postal routes that are essential to delivering mail to some of Scotland’s most remote communities. In testing, the airplanes conducted 23 flights that averaged 56 miles in length at an average speed of 99 knots. Overall, those flights averaged an energy efficiency of 1.37 kWh per nautical mile. Careful readers will note that figure is better than some electric vehicles, such as the Hummer EV from General Motors.
