FutureFlight
Six Commercial Operators Commit To Adding Atea eVTOL Aircraft to Fleets
Prospective launch customers for the four-passenger aircraft include Evfly and Yugo in Singapore, France-based HeliFirst and Jet Systems Helicoptères Services, California-based Flyshare, and Philjets Group in the Philippines.
Ascendance Flight Technologies is developing a hybrid-electric aircraft called Atea. (Image: Ascendance Flight Technologies)
Ascendance Flight Technologies' hybrid-electric Atea eVTOL aircraft will be able to carry four passengers up to around 400 km. (Image: Ascendance Flight Technologies)

French eVTOL aircraft developer Ascendance Flight Technologies, which says it is building sales momentum for its Atea model, announced this week that it now holds letters of intent for 245 copies of the four-passenger vehicle. The commitments have come from a mix of six helicopter operators and private flight providers spread across Europe, the U.S, and Asia.

According to Ascendance’s co-founder and chief customer officer, Thibault Baldivia, the Toulouse-based start-up formed a “Care Group” to provide a channel for prospective operators to have input on the program and to be sure that it is commercially viable. “We are talking a lot with customers to ensure that the machine we are designing will be what they need,” he told FutureFlight. “For instance, we chose to have hybrid-electric [propulsion] to get the range and performance they need.”

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