What Happened
Airline Finds ALIA CX300 Too Small For Cost-Effective Operations
Air New Zealand has concluded that the ALIA CX300 electric aircraft used in its recent demonstrator programme is too small to be cost-effective, prompting the airline to ask Beta Technologies to examine a larger battery-electric aircraft. According to CEO Nikhil Ravishankar, even a larger electric aircraft would remain limited to relatively short sectors, and a pure electric aircraft is unlikely to replace a B787 Dreamliner anytime soon. Air New Zealand has also evaluated other electric and hybrid-electric aircraft from Eviation, VoltAero, and Heart Aerospace, as reported by ch-aviation.