Interview:
At the Singapore Airshow, Alan Lim, Director, Alton Aviation Consultancy, moderated a panel discussion on “Explore the future of Advanced Air Mobility” where various case studies and important issues were discussed. To brief more about the sector, Alan in an interview with Vishal Kashyap, Managing Editor, Aviation World talked about the emerging UAM and AAM sector and how it is going to transform the sector in future. Excerpts…
What are your core areas of work in the Aviation sector?
Alton Aviation Consultancy is a specialised management consultancy firm and it’s solely focused on the aviation sector. So if you talk about airlines, airports, MROs, and even some of the lessors or financial investors that are looking at aviation assets, we basically do these as well planned. So increasingly, we have a new practice called the mobility practice that’s looking at things like advanced air mobility. So that really looks at helping our clients understand what exactly is this market about, what do we have to expect, what people want, what is it going to look like, what are the use cases, the whole sort of things about the strategic and business planning side of the business, and of course how they should tackle this industry.
So really our area of focus is more on the strategy inside of the business where we advise our clients really things about the market, about the outlook, about how they should tackle certain segments, or certain markets, what they should do. It’s very strategic working.
With the current trend on UAM & AAM how do you see the market growing?
I think for this UAM or AAM industry, we are at a stage right now where everyone is focused on building their vehicles and getting it certified for compliance service. We’ve heard across for the past few days, everyone is saying last year was about meeting everyone, understanding who our partners are .
At this year, it’s about getting everything together, putting everything in place, and trying to push out to get the vehicle certified within the next 18 to 24 months by 2025-26 time frame. I think a lot of them recognize that if we look at the Asia-Pacific region, from the commercial aviation perspective, that is by far the largest market and then the fastest growing market in the world, right?
There is a lot of growing middle class in the country, growing population, basically has very good tailwind for the growth of the entire aviation sector in general. But when we look at AAM in particular, we think about what are the used cases for these vehicles and what has been always talked about intra-City travel so traveling within the cities. So in a lot of Asia-Pacific countries, and even in parts of India, we see very congested cities where there is potentially a used case or market for these vehicles to transport people from point A to point B, you know, to cutting through all the different types of congestion.
So I think, you know, other use cases that you can think about is, you know, logistics, getting tighter to last mile or, you know, industrial more remote type of logistics transport, which, again, if you look at Asia-Pacific, level of urbanization is not as high.
There is a lot of potential for these type of landscape and I think by a large, a lot of the industry recognizes that this is a market that they cannot ignore. Asia-Pacific, or even the Middle East are markets where they have been supportive regulators and governments to try and develop not only the infrastructure but to help these OEMs bring their aircraft into service.
There is also push to really develop that framework to be able to test and operate these vehicles. This supportive environment is one of the key enabler for this market to move forward to grow in the Asia-Pacific region.
How do you see the adaption process when there is so much change in technology in this sector?
I think what we’ve heard and what we’ve seen as well, there is a lot of operators as well as lot of the OEMs who are trying to get their vehicles certified first. Regulators are also taking a very cautious approach while certifying any vehicles. But having that limited and sort of very gradual approach to it has its benefit.
Both regulators and operators has to get comfortable with the operation of the vehicles, but I think the more important bit is to allow the public to actually see this. Because an operation to accept that this is potentially a future form of transportation, but also to be able to be a bit more enthusiastic. Right now, people outside the industry will probably see it as a bit of a foreign content, not quite sure what it is, so until you see these things take out the sky, being operated on a limited basis, either demonstration flights or even, sort of limited commercial operations,that’s really how we build up that acceptance and enthusiasm you know, for these kinds of vehicles.
So, I think what we will see is a very gradual of these services. I think within the next five years, it will still be relatively low-uptake as these vehicles will improve in technology. As you know, regulators get more comfortable with them but as we get into the 2030s,completely,but the mid-’30s, we’ll start faster, adoption of some of these folks.
As a consultant what you would advice the start ups about the investment in this sector?
From an investor’s perspective, I think a lot of the investors in this segment have a couple of rational stories. Like, one obviously it’s a growing segment that many of them views that they cannot ignore. So, we see the likes of Airbus, Boeing, even Embraer just behind us. They have embarked on AAM division or AAM company to develop their own vehicles.
But I think the other angle is also the point on sustainability, right? These are electric vehicles using with new forms of propulsion that has the tendency to unlock, more use cases compared to helicopter travel today.
From main investor’s point of view, it’s really thinking about one, what the future holds. Two, the sustainability angle on the potential to almost revolutionize or even to form, I would say revolutionize a new form of transportation that we see today, but has potential to evolve and be revolutionized.
What are your views on the regulatory compliance?
As I have heard from a lot of operators that, this is such a new sector, no one really knows what kind of framework should we utilize to certify an aircraft. So, what we do see is a lot of very close collaboration, a very active collaboration between regulators and the OEMs themselves in some of the other markets, like anywhere in Europe, where they are both trying to figure out,what the right approaches to certify a vehicle to ensure that it’s safe to operate that it is. It’s not only safer for the people in the India aircraft, but also around the whole system.
So, I think that that step is essential to make sure that the regulators are really involved in that process, but obviously still remain independent to make sure that the level of safety is secure.
I would say, try and be a partner to the industry players because this is such a new area that requires new level of collaboration to manage the flight operations of these AM vehicles.
What’s the market of AAM in future?
So, I think the market for AAM definitely holds a lot of promise. There have been many market estimates out there which shows very exponential growth of this sector. Also, regardless of the potential it brings, we need to recognize that there are a lot of unknown challenges that industry faces actually like number one to get the aircraft certified into service and number two, get the aircraft produced in large enough numbers to satisfy the large increase in demand. And number three, really getting the public to accept that this is a viable mode of transportation, available from two perspectives, right?
We were trying to democratize the entire sort of market and that the operating cost of this aircraft will be viable and has to come with technological advancements.
