On Thursday, September 15th, Air Canada announced that they had entered into a
“purchase agreement” for 30 ES-30 aircraft,
an electric-hybrid regional airliner under development by Heart Aerospace of Sweden.
The ES-30 will be powered by lithium-ion batteries, and will seat 30 passengers in
a 2-1 configuration. Under its maximum payload, it’ll reportedly have an all-electric range of
200 kilometres. That could be extended to 400km when that power is supplemented by
reserve-hybrid generators also equipped on the plane. The range can also be
extended even further to 800 kilometres by restricting the payload to 25 passengers.
The ES-30 is an updated design of the ES-19, which made headlines last year with an agreement
from United. The ES-30 essentially replaces that smaller design, and existing orders
from United and Mesa (totalling 200 planes) have been transferred to the ES-30 as well.
A couple carriers have also signed letters of intent for the plane,
including Braathens Regional Airlines, Icelandair, and SAS.
Heart Aerospace says that the ES-30 is an electric airplane “that the industry can
actually use”, and will be able to accommodate improvements in battery technology over time.
In theory, that should progressively increase the
range of the aircraft by another 100 kilometres or so by the 2030s.
The ES-30 is expected to enter service in 2028,
and will have charging times in the range of 30 to 50 minutes.
As part of the deal, Air Canada has also acquired a $5 million US dollar stake in Heart Aerospace.
AC also says that the deal is a step forward towards their goal of net-zero emissions by 2050.
Now, at first glance, this whole deal might seem a bit strange.
Canada doesn’t immediately strike you as the ideal country for electric planes,
given the wide variations in temperatures throughout the year.
However, there are a few routes where this airplane actually makes a lot of sense.
On the west coast of the country, Air Canada has a fairly substantial feeder network out
of Vancouver, flying Dash 8-400s on super short flights between Vancouver and Vancouver Island.
Those include Vancouver to Victoria, the province’s capital, Vancouver to Nanaimo,
and Vancouver to Comox, all routes that are well below that 200km mark. These are quite busy routes
too, with over 15 flights a day between Vancouver to Victoria alone, across different airlines.
Plus, British Columbia has a much more temperate climate compared to the rest of the country,
and doesn’t usually see the -30 degree temperatures on the other side of the Rockies.
However, there is the argument of replacing one Dash 8-400 with three of these, but,
I’d have to assume the cost savings would still be significant enough.
That being said, you don’t need 30 airplanes just to cross the Strait
of Georgia multiple times a day, so there must be some other routes that they’re considering.
There are plenty of other city pairs that fall comfortably within the 200-400km mark,
like Calgary to Edmonton (244km), Regina to Saskatoon (240km), Toronto to London,
Ontario (143km), Montreal to Ottawa (152km), Moncton to Halifax (165km), and many others.
Most of those are already served with multiple-daily Dash 8 flights anyway.
It’s also worth mentioning that the ES-30 requires a runway length of 1100 metres or 3600 feet,
at least on paper, which means it could use Toronto Billy Bishop Airport.
That alone opens up plenty of opportunities for regional flights within Ontario.
This could also mean a return to some regional markets that have been left
unserved since the retirement of the Dash 8-100s and 300s.
Having those distances on paper is all well and good, but a practical issue is that these
planes still need the range to divert to an alternate airport in case of bad weather,
which in some cases could be the origin. Unless Air Canada regularly caps these planes
at 25 passengers and they fly as exclusively hybrids, that narrows the possibilities a bit.
That’s not to diminish the impact that this plane could have though. Not only could it
help to make regional flights more sustainable, both economically and environmentally,
but it’s an investment into what could be the future of the aviation industry.
It’s also worth noting that these planes, despite being 30-seaters,
are depicted in a mainline Air Canada livery, without “Express” titles. I’m sure that’s just a
minor marketing detail and it’s pretty likely that you’d see these planes operated by Jazz anyway.
Of course, 2028 is quite a ways away still so there’s a lot that could happen in the meantime,
but this is definitely an interesting development for Canadian aviation.
Thank you for watching, and I’ll catch you next time!