ZeroAvia and its investor Shell have agreed with Rotterdam The Hague Airport and Rotterdam the Hague Innovation Airport to plan for hydrogen-powered commercial flights by 2025
UK-based ZeroAvia, which is developing "zero-emissions solutions" for commercial flying, said the agreement will "develop a concept of operations for hydrogen in airports and demonstration flights to European destinations by the end of 2024", ahead of commercial flights planned for the following year.
The deal will "focus on serving the first hydrogen flight from Rotterdam, including operation at the airport, developing on-the-ground infrastructure and operations to satisfactorily pilot distribution, storage, and dispensing of hydrogen for aviation, leading towards decarbonising the whole airport ecosystem," ZeroAvia said.
The announcement followed a "cooperation commitment" made by the parties last year to launch the first hydrogen-electric commercial flight and came ZeroAvia's demonstration in the UK in January 2022 of a first flight of a 19-seat aircraft powered by its prototype ZA600 engine.
“Having this consortium, including Rotterdam The Hague Innovation Airport and Shell, moves the ball a significant distance down the field towards our goal line of commercial operations. Some first passengers on zero-emission flights in the world could be flying from Rotterdam," said Arnab Chatterjee ZeroAvia's infrastructure vice president.
The project "allows the opportunity to road test multi-fuel and multimodal fuelling operations in a live airport environment", said Oliver Bishop, general manager hydrogen at Shell, adding it also "offers the chance to support one of the first international zero-emission passenger routes".