Flyv wants to make much better use of and connect smaller airports in Europe's more rural areas. In a few years, a big growth is foreseen in the demand and use of small clean and quiet electric aircraft that can cover distances of 100 to 900 kilometres. As batteries improve, distances will increase. This is an attractive market for demand-driven air taxi services that can move passengers from the electric car into an electric plane sustainably and quickly with short transfer times and at competitive fares. Through an app, you can order a flight and the flying taxi will be ready at the desired time. It is only a matter of time that this becomes possible. Twente Airport and Flyv want to serve this market and are now making preparations for it. 

Lessons learned Twente Airport scalable to other airports

As an established regional airport used to on-demand business flights, Twente Airport is well positioned to help enable new sustainable on-demand transport services. This also places demands on ground operations, such as handling passenger flows, filling/loading aircraft and setting up aircraft maintenance. Lessons learned at Twente Airport can be applied to other airports as well.

Tomislav Lang, founder Flyv: ‘We are delighted to add Twente Airport as a forward-thinking, progressive new regional airport partner. Flyv can help local companies in Twente and Overijssel explore opportunities for conventional flight connections to Germany, France, Scandinavia and the UK, a catchment area of some three million people."

Next-gen aircraft need dedicated operators 

‘Twente Airport management is excited about the air taxi services and the electric and eVTOL next gen programmes, but also about the new aircraft developers who are designing and building the new sustainable aircraft and the pioneering operators who want to fly them,’ says Gerben Groothuis, eFlight Business Development Manager at Twente Airport. "It is also smart to start setting up this taxi service with existing smaller fossil-powered aircraft as long as the electric aircraft are not yet available. One can practice at Twente Airport with existing aircraft to try out the service, so that in a few years‘ time the switch to clean and quiet aircraft can be made smoothly.’   

Flyv will establish its own Air Operator Certificate (AOC) and aims to have established a core network within Europe by the end of 2024 and start the first flights in 2025. Initially with the robust Tecnam P2012 Traveller with STOL performance that will fly from Twente Airport. 

This will be followed by the hybrid-electric Electra and eventually the all-electric Eviation Alice. Starting with four Tecnam P2012 Travellers, flyv plans to expand its fleet to more than 50 low-cost and low-emission aircraft over the next decade, depending on customer demand. In October, flyv signed a letter of intent with Eviation in the US for the purchase of 25 all-electric Alice aircraft, complementing the hybrid Electra.aero commuterliner, for which a pre-order of more than 50 aircraft was placed in 2022.