Regional Australian airline Rex could begin offering all-electric flights soon after striking a deal to retrofit some of its existing aircraft fleet with electric propulsion.
Rex this week announced a partnership with Australian-based Dovetail Electric Aviation to “pioneer” the conversion of turbine aircraft to electric and zero emission propulsion.
Under the partnership, some of Rex’s legacy aircraft fleet will be retrofitted with electric engines manufactured by MagniX, and will include the installation of electric-drive propulsion, battery systems and hydrogen fuel cells onto aircraft.
According to Dovetail, the retrofitted planes would benefit from a 40 per cent reduction in operating costs, as well as a 30 to 40 per cent reduction in noise.
Rex said that it would provide the aircraft to be used as the pilot conversion to electric – understood to be drawn from its fleet of Saab 340 aircraft – along with support services that draw upon its existing engineering and technical expertise.
Deputy chairman of Rex Airlines, John Sharp, said the partnership would help establish the airline at the ‘forefront’ of the decarbonisation of air travel.
“Rex is both proud and excited to be at the forefront of developments in sustainable regional aviation and helping our national efforts in achieving the target of net zero emissions by 2050,” Sharp said.
“Regional airlines operating short sectors as well as seaplanes and training aircraft will be the early adopters of electric battery propulsion. Australia, with its very high utilisation of regional aviation and large number of aircraft capable of conversion, is a perfect incubator for the electric aviation industry.”
“Significantly lower operating costs of electric aircraft will also help to stimulate regional aviation services between communities not currently served by scheduled flights.”
Airline travel has generally been viewed as a ‘hard to abate’ sector, as zero emissions technologies like electric propulsion still remain relatively unproven. Some airlines have experimented with the use of biofuels to offset the use of fossil fuel based aviation fuels, but higher costs and a lack of availability at scale have also limited their use.
Major airline manufacturers are actively considering the development of zero emissions aircraft technologies, including European giant Airbus actively investigating the development of green hydrogen fuelled aircraft.
Australian airline giant Qantas, however, has conceded the electrification of its own fleet could be “several decades” away. However, many experts say that electric aircraft will be limited to short regional routes.
Rex currently operates a fleet of small to medium aircraft that service primarily regional airports, including flights linking regional centres to major capital cities.
CEO of Sydney Aviation Holdings, Aaron Shaw – which owns Dovetail – said the company hopes to tap into the substantial global market for air travel and is aiming to open conversion centres across Australia, Europe and Singapore after the successful certification of its electric propulsion technologies, with further expansion into the United States and the Middle East also possible.
“Our vision is to lead regional aviation across the world into an exciting, new sustainable era before leveraging the IP, approvals and facilities we establish into larger aircraft and longer flights as improvements in electric propulsion technology enable.”
Dovetail said the retrofit of electric propulsion to existing aircraft could accelerate the certification process for electric aircraft, which could be achieved within just four years, compared to an expected eight to ten-year certification process for electric aircraft developed and built from scratch.