Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey therein
Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff. My name is Jonathan Strickland. I
Speaker 1: am your host, and how the tech are you. I
Speaker 1: have a very special episode today. It is rare that
Speaker 1: I get to do interviews, and it's more rare than
Speaker 1: I get to talk to C suite individuals in my interviews.
Speaker 1: But today I get to do that because I have
Speaker 1: Sudan Shahani from surf Air on my show. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jonathan. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to talk to you because I remember
Speaker 1: hearing about surf Air almost a decade ago now while
Speaker 1: I was just following up on tech and back in
Speaker 1: those days, the business plan and the approach and the
Speaker 1: company mission statement was a little bit different than what
Speaker 1: you are pursuing now. So I hope we can kind
Speaker 1: of talk about sort of the history of the company
Speaker 1: while the original vision was and how that has evolved
Speaker 1: over time, because I'm really excited about where you're headed.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. So the short version of this is, you know,
Speaker 3: the early days of Surfair, the business model, it started
Speaker 3: to serve business travelers and it started to serve business
Speaker 3: travelers with a subscription all you can fly type product
Speaker 3: for really the frequent flyer that was going on routes
Speaker 3: like La de San Francisco and Santa Barbara de San
Speaker 3: Francisco and wanted to go from a small airport to
Speaker 3: smaller airport and get call it, two hours of their.
Speaker 2: Life back on a day trip.
Speaker 3: So don't spend a lot of time in the big airport,
Speaker 3: get there five minutes before, get on a small plane,
Speaker 3: hang with other members of like a like minded travelers club.
Speaker 3: And people were doing it three or four times a month,
Speaker 3: and we were giving consumers back time.
Speaker 2: It was a great experience.
Speaker 3: It was one of the few times I think people
Speaker 3: actually enjoyed their their their flying experience, or we kind
Speaker 3: of tried to bring that back, if you will, and
Speaker 3: along the way we kind of realized that, you know,
Speaker 3: while that was great to serve a particular audience that
Speaker 3: was paying a small premium to kind of domestic business
Speaker 3: class to get an experience that felt more like a
Speaker 3: private flying experience, that was still a pretty limited I mean,
Speaker 3: we could do that on roots like La San Francisco
Speaker 3: and a number of other kind of high traffic you know,
Speaker 3: commercial hubs, on each end, business city pairs with all
Speaker 3: these business travelers. But we realized that if actually there's
Speaker 3: five thousand airports in the country, and if we could
Speaker 3: create something that took away the barriers, like if we
Speaker 3: could make a similar experience affordable to a much broader audience,
Speaker 3: that would be great. That would be the big the
Speaker 3: big idea, like how can we make this affordable and
Speaker 3: how can we make it greener? Because we look at
Speaker 3: the two barriers to entry that people had, they were
Speaker 3: either like, that's still a little bit expensive for me,
Speaker 3: I don't fly enough to justify it, or like do
Speaker 3: I really want to seem like I'm flying on a
Speaker 3: private plane? Like that doesn't really go well with my
Speaker 3: carbon footprint. And the reality is we're now entering an
Speaker 3: error where we're moving towards the world is moving towards
Speaker 3: green aviation is that's sort of the way we look
Speaker 3: at it, and regional travel, at least over the next
Speaker 3: decade or two, we think is about to be reimagined
Speaker 3: because all of the innovation in this space is coming
Speaker 3: around small planes flying short routes and that's where our.
Speaker 2: Specialty is, that's what we do.
Speaker 3: And if we could very simply, if you can make
Speaker 3: smaller planes electric, a lot more people can afford him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you've covered a lot of ground, which is
Speaker 1: only fair for a company that flies everywhere. But I
Speaker 1: want to dive into a couple of those things. One
Speaker 1: of them is, you know, we're starting to hear about
Speaker 1: this concept of regional air mobility, this ability to travel
Speaker 1: to relatively short distances, far enough where driving would still
Speaker 1: take several hours, but short enough so that smaller aircraft
Speaker 1: can make that in a single leg as opposed to
Speaker 1: multiple hops. And this approach to trying to make that
Speaker 1: more accessible and also reduce carbon footprint makes a ton
Speaker 1: of sense to me. It also comes in line with
Speaker 1: some other business plans we've been hearing from with other
Speaker 1: startups that are looking at even shorter distances right Like,
Speaker 1: we're looking at companies that are starting up in the
Speaker 1: space where they're using kind of the quad copter sort
Speaker 1: of approach to take passengers from a centralized location to
Speaker 1: the airport. To me, like, this is the next step
Speaker 1: out from that. We're not talking about coast to coast travel,
Speaker 1: but if I here in Atlanta, if I need to
Speaker 1: get to Western Tennessee, well taking booking a big commercial
Speaker 1: aircraft seat for that can seem like it's a bit overkill,
Speaker 1: but it's still too far to make it a convenient
Speaker 1: drive to get out there in a day, do some
Speaker 1: business come back, or even just on a short weekend
Speaker 1: trip if it's like a recreational thing. So I get
Speaker 1: where the appeal is and I'm really excited to learn
Speaker 1: more about this. At what point in the phase of
Speaker 1: surf air where you start to look at this as
Speaker 1: being the next step of kind of migrating toward this
Speaker 1: approach of how can we enable regional mobility when we
Speaker 1: have all these different airports that are underused or sometimes
Speaker 1: they're just going dormant for a while because they're just
Speaker 1: they're catering to like local pilots, and that's it. When
Speaker 1: did you start really kind of ideating on this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question. And actually, and you covered
Speaker 3: a lot of ground there too. I think that in
Speaker 3: our case, unlike a lot of other people in the
Speaker 3: space in the aviation of the airline space, in the
Speaker 3: early days of surf air, we were one of the
Speaker 3: few companies that was actually building a brand and a
Speaker 3: consumer service around flying smaller airplanes. The industry at a
Speaker 3: whole when they think about when they thought about the
Speaker 3: new technology happening. So a couple of different trends are
Speaker 3: coming together here. To your point, regional air mobility is
Speaker 3: now something a lot of people are talking about. You'll
Speaker 3: see NASA reports and McKinsey reports and kind of it's
Speaker 3: sort of becoming a thing that that's where a lot
Speaker 3: of the innovation in aviation is going to be for
Speaker 3: the next decade or two. And it's sort of It
Speaker 3: also is slightly in contrast to a line is being
Speaker 3: drawn between urban air mobility and regional air mobility. So
Speaker 3: when you talk about the quad copters and ev toll
Speaker 3: and things like that going really short distances, that's really
Speaker 3: that's being classified or will you know as urban air
Speaker 3: mobility call it zero to fifty miles, and then you
Speaker 3: look at regional air mobility fifty to five hundred miles.
Speaker 3: The benefits of regional air mobility and why people believe
Speaker 3: that will develop first would say is that we have,
Speaker 3: particularly in this country, all of the infrastructure.
Speaker 2: To another point you.
Speaker 3: Made, there are actually five thousand airports that exist in
Speaker 3: this country that can be used by charter operators in
Speaker 3: real contrast, major commercial airlines, we're morphed over the last
Speaker 3: couple of decades really more into a hub and spoke
Speaker 3: model with larger planes and less deserving, less places, and
Speaker 3: less point to point. You know, eighty percent of airline
Speaker 3: traffic goes through thirty airports, and they may flex up
Speaker 3: to two or three hundred for the other twenty percent.
Speaker 3: We were already flying from airport. It's like that, Like
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here talking to you today from our headquarters
Speaker 3: at Hawthorne in California. Hawthorne Airport is a smaller, smaller airport.
Speaker 3: You know, California alone is three hundred airports. There's probably
Speaker 3: twelve airports within an hour drive of here. And because
Speaker 3: we were already flying smaller aircraft and flying from airports
Speaker 3: like that, when different companies were coming up with solutions
Speaker 3: and electrification, new technology, new vehicles, we would really get
Speaker 3: to see a lot of that first. We were fortunate
Speaker 3: to see a lot of that as it was happening.
Speaker 3: So to directly answer a question, when we start thinking
Speaker 3: about this, we've been following the trend of kind of
Speaker 3: where the space is going. Given that we are in
Speaker 3: fact today we are the largest commuter airline in the US,
Speaker 3: and the commuter air category is really the category that
Speaker 3: would be defined as the business model that would enable
Speaker 3: regional airmobility. It's flying small planes frequently like an airline.
Speaker 3: So we're the biggest brand in that space, and hence
Speaker 3: we saw a lot of things first. Whereas large airlines
Speaker 3: would really look at small electric airplanes as a sign
Speaker 3: project on their way to big ones, it wasn't a
Speaker 3: real commercial use case there. So we were kind of
Speaker 3: in a really unique position to be able to We
Speaker 3: think we're in a unique position to be able to
Speaker 3: lead the charge here well.
Speaker 1: And with that established infrastructure there, it sets it apart
Speaker 1: from other potential solutions that would require massive investment in
Speaker 1: building out infrastructure. I'm thinking of things like all the
Speaker 1: various sort of blue sky rail initiatives that have been
Speaker 1: pushed around, and I love the concept of rail initiatives,
Speaker 1: but if you're being realistic and you're thinking about the
Speaker 1: amount of time and money that's going to be required
Speaker 1: for that to happen, and you are really realistic and
Speaker 1: you start talking about the political buy in that has
Speaker 1: to happen for that to work, and then we recognize
Speaker 1: that every few years we change our political leaders, and
Speaker 1: so consistency is difficult. Having that infrastructure there is so valuable.
Speaker 1: I think it's impossible to overstate how valuable it is
Speaker 1: that these airports already exist. So that problem has been solved.
Speaker 1: Now it's the question of can you have the capacity
Speaker 1: to meet demand, can you find the price point that
Speaker 1: works for the customer, and can you have that be
Speaker 1: a business plan that ultimately results in profitability.
Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right. I mean, look, we say
Speaker 3: that to really build out the regional ammability landscape, and
Speaker 3: you need a couple of like there's a couple of
Speaker 3: key things you need for success. You actually need a
Speaker 3: brand and a platform that consumers trust and that operators
Speaker 3: are able to fly for. So what we're trying to
Speaker 3: do here we don't just want to continue to build
Speaker 3: a huge single airline in the space. We actually have
Speaker 3: a platform and a brand today where we have a
Speaker 3: number of third party operators that fly for us. We
Speaker 3: want to deploy electric airplanes across all of them, not
Speaker 3: just for ourselves, and the first wave of electrification which
Speaker 3: will significantly reduce costs as well. We're actually electrifying an
Speaker 3: airplane called the Cessna caravan. We're working with Cessna the
Speaker 3: manufacturer and to do so, but we're going to own
Speaker 3: the ip around it. But it's a we're built. We're
Speaker 3: creating both a fully electric and a hybrid electric powertrain
Speaker 3: for the Cessna Caravan. And what's really important about the
Speaker 3: hybrid particularly is to the point you were making about
Speaker 3: all the existing infrastructure, the hybrid Sessna Caravan will work.
Speaker 3: Think like the early days of the Prius. The combustion
Speaker 3: motor charge is the battery, so you actually don't need
Speaker 3: charging stations to be set up at all of these airports.
Speaker 3: You don't need any infrastructure upgrades across all of these
Speaker 3: airports to be able to use it. So we live
Speaker 3: in a country today where all of these airports exist.
Speaker 3: A number of airplanes exist which can be converted over
Speaker 3: to more efficient and modern powertrains hybrid electric, fully electric,
Speaker 3: et cetera. Based on the mission, hybrid electric can actually
Speaker 3: save twenty five percent of the operating cost, which makes
Speaker 3: it which is a huge number in aviation world, and
Speaker 3: fully electric can save up to fifty percent of the cost,
Speaker 3: but will initially be focused on much on shorter routes
Speaker 3: one hundred miles and less.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break and then we'll
Speaker 1: be back to talk more about surf air mobility. I
Speaker 1: really wanted to talk to you, Sodent about the electrification process,
Speaker 1: because that's to me one of the really exciting things
Speaker 1: about this. I mean, one, opening up accessibility to more
Speaker 1: people so that they're able to take advantage of this
Speaker 1: kind of travel. I'm really excited about that as well,
Speaker 1: especially in lieu of methods of getting from place to
Speaker 1: place when you're talking in that like fifty to five
Speaker 1: hundred mile range. But can you kind of talk me
Speaker 1: through this electrification process? Are you both looking into retrofitting
Speaker 1: existing aircraft with new electric powertrain systems or hybrid powertrain systems.
Speaker 1: Are you also looking at maybe partnering with companies that
Speaker 1: would be building purpose built electric planes. What's your approach?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a good question, and actually it's funny here
Speaker 3: here at our business, I try to have everyone use
Speaker 3: the word upgrading.
Speaker 2: Rather than retrofitting.
Speaker 1: Okay, no, taken.
Speaker 3: So we think the first thing that you can do
Speaker 3: to make the biggest impact is actually take an existing
Speaker 3: airframe where there is wide distribution of it already, and
Speaker 3: upgrade that to being a hybrid or fully electric powertrain.
Speaker 3: If you think about just the life cycle of an airplane,
Speaker 3: people keep airplanes or airplanes stay in service twenty five
Speaker 3: thirty years. However, there's a moment, depending on the utilization
Speaker 3: of the operator, call it every three to five years,
Speaker 3: where they have to do a full overhaul of the
Speaker 3: combustion engine, and that's a moment where they could replace
Speaker 3: it with an electric engine, which is a way to
Speaker 3: get faster adoption across a much larger category. So we're
Speaker 3: starting with the first thing we're doing is in electric
Speaker 3: and a hybrid powertrain for the Cessna Caravan. Cessna Caravan
Speaker 3: is a great airplane. It's been around for a long time.
Speaker 3: There's over three thousand of them out there. We are
Speaker 3: actually the largest passenger operator, we believe, of the Caravan
Speaker 3: in the US, and these powertrains will be both marketed
Speaker 3: to existing owners that existing fleet out there, where when
Speaker 3: it comes time for an engine overhaul, the goal is
Speaker 3: to have them be able to upgrade to a hybrid
Speaker 3: or an electric powertrain for a similar prices it would
Speaker 3: cost them to overhaul a combustion engine and instantly start
Speaker 3: seeing the cost and the emissions benefits Additionally, Cessna will
Speaker 3: be selling new versions of the airplane basically with an
Speaker 3: electric version and a hybrid version for new buyers. And
Speaker 3: there's a pretty broad range of potential customers for the caravan.
Speaker 3: It's passenger operators like us, it's cargo, it's military, etc.
Speaker 3: There's a number of use cases. So that's the first
Speaker 3: the electrification project we're doing. Will we do intend in
Speaker 3: the future to work with other airplane types with kind
Speaker 3: of our proprietary technology, of course, and we also intend
Speaker 3: to work with there's a lot of amazing and ambitious
Speaker 3: projects for people who are building clean sheet design airframes,
Speaker 3: lighter airframes so on, that are purpose built for electric engines,
Speaker 3: and a lot of them are building their own electric
Speaker 3: engines in those cases, and we intend to work with
Speaker 3: companies like that too to plug into our platform. As
Speaker 3: I mentioned, you know, we have a brand in a
Speaker 3: platform which we have our own fleet, and we've got
Speaker 3: a number of other operators that fly within the platform,
Speaker 3: and we would like to provide people with the best
Speaker 3: aircraft for the best use case. So if there's a
Speaker 3: great new clean sheet design aircraft that comes to market,
Speaker 3: we'd like to be the one to help distribute that
Speaker 3: and commercialize it too. Wow, so we will in the
Speaker 3: long run have a range of products.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It makes me think of some of the sort of
Speaker 1: the big displays we saw where you had things like
Speaker 1: the solar powered plane that made the journey around the world,
Speaker 1: and you realize, all right, well, this is not to
Speaker 1: show some sort of practical use for an aircraft. This
Speaker 1: is not an aircraft that's going to take you, you know,
Speaker 1: from one city to another. But what it does start
Speaker 1: to show is potential for various technologies to be incorporated
Speaker 1: in real world applications. And it's exciting to talk to
Speaker 1: someone at a company where you're actually kind of doing that,
Speaker 1: where you're using this upgrade approach. And I love creating
Speaker 1: that incentive as well, the upgrade incentive where you know,
Speaker 1: for a similar price you can swap out the powertrain
Speaker 1: for your aircraft and you know that you're going to
Speaker 1: be incurring lower costs down the line. One of the
Speaker 1: things that I think is really interesting is in the
Speaker 1: auto manufacturing space. We've heard time and again from manufacturers
Speaker 1: that changing from internal combustion engine vehicles to electric vehicles
Speaker 1: ends up simplifying things a great deal, both on the
Speaker 1: manufacturing and fabrication side and in the maintenance side, because
Speaker 1: the systems themselves are inherently less complex than your traditional
Speaker 1: fuel powered engines are. So is the same thing true
Speaker 1: with aircraft.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. Think about you know, electric motors are
Speaker 3: much simpler. What we're doing is designing and assembling electric powertrains,
Speaker 3: which are a combination of motors, battery packs, a layer
Speaker 3: of control software you wrap around them. In the case
Speaker 3: of the hybrid, you're also adding a smaller, more efficient
Speaker 3: combustion motor that helps charge the battery. And given that
Speaker 3: there's also a real software layer that wraps around this
Speaker 3: and then integrates into the aircraft, the aid the hardware
Speaker 3: is all cheaper to maintain than the existing combustion engine,
Speaker 3: and b the ability to continuously evolve and upgrade the powertrain,
Speaker 3: similar to what you've seen with electric cars or other
Speaker 3: kind of systems, where where an operator that takes an
Speaker 3: electrified powertrain from US will have they'll have that one
Speaker 3: time fee to install it. There'll be an ongoing relationship
Speaker 3: with them, which is not just about basic maintenance. It's
Speaker 3: also about constant aircraft health monitoring, predictive maintenance upgrading, kind
Speaker 3: of as batteries get to next generations and evolve like
Speaker 3: the product will continue to evolve, So you may see
Speaker 3: an electric aircraft with a fully electric aircraft with an
Speaker 3: initial initial range of one hundred miles that at and
Speaker 3: get upgraded to go two hundred miles at some point
Speaker 3: in the future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it blows my mind too, because I'm from I'm
Speaker 1: old enough where the idea of something like the equivalent
Speaker 1: of a firmware upgrade to a vehicle is a completely
Speaker 1: foreign concept to me, because I think back to my
Speaker 1: childhood and the computerized systems and vehicles were very primitive
Speaker 1: and very limited. You're talking about bunch of micro controllers
Speaker 1: that don't even really talk to each other. And now
Speaker 1: we're in a world where we have a lot more
Speaker 1: interconnected systems, where because we have that capability, it opens
Speaker 1: up opportunities that we can't even necessarily conceptualize right now.
Speaker 1: Right it may be that three years down the line
Speaker 1: we realize, oh, we can leverage this because we've built
Speaker 1: it into the vehicle to deliver some new features that
Speaker 1: end up being huge improvement of quality of life or
Speaker 1: much more effective for the maintenance and care of aircraft
Speaker 1: or the operation of those aircraft. To me, that's another
Speaker 1: really exciting thing about this approach, And of course that
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily just limit itself to electrified vehicles, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of in line with that too, where we're talking
Speaker 1: about this you know, integrated package where it's not just
Speaker 1: the drive train, it's the entire system, the control system,
Speaker 1: and everything that's wrapped around of the software that enables
Speaker 1: everything as well. And I had read up on an
Speaker 1: interesting thing about electric planes, because if you've ever ridden
Speaker 1: an electric vehicle, you know that they operate at a
Speaker 1: much quieter noise level than an internal combustion engine vehicle.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing with electric planes is that they do
Speaker 1: operate more quietly than your typical fuel driven aircraft. But propellers,
Speaker 1: you know, turboprops make noise, and if you're in an
Speaker 1: aircraft that's being powered by a fueled engine, chances are
Speaker 1: the engine noises are actually drowning out anything from the propellers.
Speaker 1: You're not hearing them unless you're maybe sitting up there
Speaker 1: with a pilot. But in electric planes there's less to
Speaker 1: mask that. So I'm curious, what are you looking into
Speaker 1: as far as ways to mitigate propeller noise? In order
Speaker 1: to make sure you're not impacting the passenger experience too much.
Speaker 3: So in the world of building aircraft, there's the airframe
Speaker 3: manufacturer and there's the powertrain, which, unlike ours, those were
Speaker 3: actually separated a long time ago, which is why our
Speaker 3: business model is survivable to be in the powertrain space.
Speaker 3: I would say the airframe manufacturers are actually doing a
Speaker 3: lot of interesting things like adding blades to propellers, curve propellers,
Speaker 3: things like that to mitigate noise. I'm not sure if
Speaker 3: the propeller noise gets louder, if the engine noise gets softer,
Speaker 3: I get the relative comparison. I'm not sure there's been
Speaker 3: enough electric planes flown around to kind of prove that out,
Speaker 3: so reserve judgment on that. But certainly there are enhancements
Speaker 3: being made on with propellers to make them quieter, and
Speaker 3: certainly the goal of electrified aircraft. We're not suggesting that
Speaker 3: electrified aircraft will be silent, but certainly the goals are
Speaker 3: to reduce noise levels because to your point, you know,
Speaker 3: there's all of these airports that can be accessed, and
Speaker 3: reducing noise levels to be able to get in and
Speaker 3: out of ones in more crowded residential areas would be
Speaker 3: an extremely helpful.
Speaker 1: Thing, right, right, Because we're also hearing onlike the crazy
Speaker 1: ultra lux side of aircraft, all these companies that are
Speaker 1: struggling or trying to become hypersonic aircraft companies, and they're
Speaker 1: trying to suggest, oh, well, we're designing aircraft that's going
Speaker 1: to minimize or even eliminate sonic booms. I'm not a physicist,
Speaker 1: but I have a real hard time believing that based
Speaker 1: upon how air works. But I hear about that, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, finding ways to minimize noise so
Speaker 1: that you are not a nuisance to the community. I mean,
Speaker 1: especially if we're looking at utilizing these various airports, these
Speaker 1: regional airports at a higher rate, then it stands to
Speaker 1: reason that you, if you want to do good business,
Speaker 1: you have to take that into consideration as well.
Speaker 3: And everything about our model we talk about wanting to
Speaker 3: sustainably connect the world's communities. Like the idea is how
Speaker 3: we create value in a community. We would like to
Speaker 3: create more jobs in that community. We'd like to have
Speaker 3: people who live there be able to move around quicker, faster, cheaper,
Speaker 3: ideally quieter. Yeah, as well, and not sit in traffic
Speaker 3: for four hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it opens up opportunities that otherwise
Speaker 1: just are very difficult to realize because just because the
Speaker 1: physical realities of getting around in the world and that,
Speaker 1: you know, we have to come to the conclusion that
Speaker 1: there are certain things that are just more effective to
Speaker 1: do in person. Podcasts arguably are one of them. But yeah,
Speaker 1: and having those opportunities to do that without having to
Speaker 1: dedicate half a day of travel to get there or
Speaker 1: to navigate through a busy airport, especially if you're talking
Speaker 1: about the ability to get to a regional airport that
Speaker 1: might be closer to your final destination as opposed to
Speaker 1: fly into a major city and then having to drive
Speaker 1: another three hours to get to wherever you're headed. I
Speaker 1: can really see the value proposition there. We're going to
Speaker 1: take another quick break, but we'll be right back to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about surf air mobility. So
Speaker 1: what are we looking at as far as timelines go?
Speaker 1: How are you you know, what's what's your your plan? Like?
Speaker 1: Where are you looking at at where people might realistically
Speaker 1: expect to start seeing surf air service start popping up
Speaker 1: in places beyond you know, obviously been operating in California
Speaker 1: for years, but beyond there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, as part of so we recently
Speaker 3: acquired a company called Southern Areas as well. And you know,
Speaker 3: we have operations in Hawaii, we have operations in California.
Speaker 3: We actually operate in various routes around the country where
Speaker 3: we fly through under a program called the Essential Air
Speaker 3: Service Program, flying to communities that don't have much air service.
Speaker 3: And we have recently built out an on demand short
Speaker 3: regional kind of charter platform, more more efficient fly tover
Speaker 3: prop versus a jet or flying you know, and that's
Speaker 3: a national platform too, so you do have surfair in
Speaker 3: some form across a lot of the country. We are
Speaker 3: going to continue to scale that with combustion airplanes, always
Speaker 3: focusing on the most fuel efficient airplanes and so on
Speaker 3: as part of our mission of green aviation until we
Speaker 3: start to deploy electrified airplanes, which we intend to do
Speaker 3: starting the beginning of twenty twenty six. So we're going
Speaker 3: through a certification process now of you know, we've already
Speaker 3: had a demonstration of the technology and we're now going
Speaker 3: through a certification process.
Speaker 1: Excellent, Yeah, and has anything surprised you along this journey,
Speaker 1: things that you've learned that perhaps were counterintuitive, or something
Speaker 1: that really delights you as you were working towards this goal.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, how long have you got like
Speaker 3: a surprise every day? Look, I think one of the
Speaker 3: things that's been that it's been great as we think
Speaker 3: about the path and the product line we're bringing out,
Speaker 3: you know, we're very focused on I think I mentioned
Speaker 3: to you that the hybrid electric is actually what we
Speaker 3: think is being designed for kind of mass adoption here
Speaker 3: within the caravan community, because the idea of the hybrid
Speaker 3: electric is it's not going to it's going to not
Speaker 3: need infrastructure on the ground, it's not going to have
Speaker 3: really any range limitations as opposed to the fully electric
Speaker 3: and so on. We are, however, going to launch the
Speaker 3: fully electric first, and that's that's a different order than.
Speaker 2: We'd originally thought about.
Speaker 3: You know, when we were telling people building a hybrid plane,
Speaker 3: they often say okay, great, and then like, when will
Speaker 3: it be fully electric? Like that's the natural kind of
Speaker 3: question that we get next. But the reality is we're
Speaker 3: building an electric powertrain which has a hybrid variant, which
Speaker 3: will be the more popular variant in the long run.
Speaker 3: But it's but we are going to start with a
Speaker 3: fully electric which I think we're really excited about. We
Speaker 3: want to be I think our goal would be to
Speaker 3: be the first to commercially eployee fully electric flight. And
Speaker 3: we have a perfect use case for it in our
Speaker 3: network in Hawaii where we have we fly a number
Speaker 3: of short hops that fully electric flight could be.
Speaker 2: That could be a launch showcase for example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've had the luxury of visiting Hawaii a few
Speaker 1: times and have taken some of those island hopper flights.
Speaker 1: I could easily see that as being the perfect use
Speaker 1: case to showcase the technology and it's a applicability. And
Speaker 1: your comments on hybrid approach makes so much sense because
Speaker 1: it didn't even occur to me that, of course, if
Speaker 1: you were to go fully electric, then yes, we have
Speaker 1: all these thousands of airports that are under used, perhaps
Speaker 1: across the entire United States, but they don't necessarily have
Speaker 1: the facility to be able to recharge a plane. It's
Speaker 1: just like we are looking at the electric vehicle challenges
Speaker 1: across the United States where yeah, you've got to build
Speaker 1: that electric charging infrastructure or else people could potentially end
Speaker 1: up running out of juice in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: That's one of those things that's a huge worry point
Speaker 1: for a lot of consumers, right they don't want to
Speaker 1: adopt electric because they worry about this, And until you
Speaker 1: have the infrastructure, you can't really drive adoption of electric.
Speaker 1: But then then you also have the flip side of
Speaker 1: that problem. If you don't drive adoption of electric, then
Speaker 1: there's very little incentive to build out the infrastructure, and
Speaker 1: it becomes a chicken and egg problem. So I definitely
Speaker 1: agree with you that I think the hybrid approach is
Speaker 1: the one that ultimately makes the most sense and will
Speaker 1: be the most popular because there will be some airports
Speaker 1: where they just won't have the capacity to be able
Speaker 1: to meet that electric charging demand, at least not in
Speaker 1: the short term, perhaps in the mid or long term.
Speaker 3: Absolutely no, we think hybrid will be a valuable product
Speaker 3: and a valuable product globally for a long time to come. Yeah,
Speaker 3: look at the use cases of caravans. There, there's cargo passenger,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of international use cases. There's a number
Speaker 3: of Sessa caravans in Africa and Asia. There's a lot
Speaker 3: of places where the caravan. We think the hybrid will
Speaker 3: be really valuable where which won't need any infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Up right, and it's still following in that same path
Speaker 1: as we're seeing with countries around the world pushing toward
Speaker 1: electrification for land vehicles, and you're ahead of the game
Speaker 1: on that when you're pushing for it for aircraft as well.
Speaker 1: And to me, like that's a huge value proposition when
Speaker 1: you're coming into talk to various countries or states or
Speaker 1: regions and you're talking about the value of going with
Speaker 1: a hybrid approach, when you're talking about things like climate,
Speaker 1: you're talking about the local economy, all of those things
Speaker 1: start to line up and it's I think we're looking
Speaker 1: at a convergence of perfect timing and perfect environment to
Speaker 1: have this kind of an approach to the business. So
Speaker 1: I totally am jazzed by the mission statement for surf
Speaker 1: Air in the direction you're pursuing.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I selfishly, I'm really looking forward to twenty twenty
Speaker 1: six when I can start looking at booking a flight
Speaker 1: on one of these so I can experience it. I
Speaker 1: mean in the luxury where I could do that just
Speaker 1: to try it out, but also like the idea of
Speaker 1: being able to do something to make these short hop
Speaker 1: flights where otherwise I might not even consider traveling to
Speaker 1: the place, even though there might be clear benefits to
Speaker 1: traveling there. If I might need to record something with
Speaker 1: someone who's maybe three hundred miles away, and that's too
Speaker 1: far for me to worry about driving or for them
Speaker 1: to worry about driving. But if I had an option
Speaker 1: like this, then that suddenly becomes a viable possibility. And
Speaker 1: you know, even in just my own personal case, it
Speaker 1: makes sense.
Speaker 3: And I think that's one of the core things that
Speaker 3: they consider what we're doing. Like again, unlike the shift
Speaker 3: to ev on the ground, the shift to electric in
Speaker 3: the air, it really like it matters to customers in
Speaker 3: a very different way as well. Of course, everyone wants.
Speaker 2: To be more more green.
Speaker 3: Really, that's the big point here is are actually creating
Speaker 3: a whole new market and a whole new audience, a
Speaker 3: whole new level of accessibility where because of the amount
Speaker 3: you one can reduce cost, people who could never afford
Speaker 3: to fly in small.
Speaker 2: Planes will one day be able to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the real consumer proposition here of regional
Speaker 3: air mobility and so on.
Speaker 2: It's like it's saying, you're.
Speaker 3: Guysurely going to take people a lot of people up
Speaker 3: from the ground into the air because it can now
Speaker 3: be affordable for them to do so, Like they will
Speaker 3: be able to get places cheaper and faster, more efficiently.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic and it's so exciting to talk about, like
Speaker 1: the combination of regional air mobility, which is already a
Speaker 1: burgeoning kind of business area, and then the electrification on
Speaker 1: the other side, you're putting them both together. It's really innovative.
Speaker 1: And I was so excited when I was told that
Speaker 1: I'd have the opportunity to speak with you about this
Speaker 1: because again, like when I had first heard of surf air,
Speaker 1: it was when you know, tech journalists were kind of
Speaker 1: referencing it as like almost like ride hailing but for
Speaker 1: small aircraft over in Silicon Valley, which wasn't even really
Speaker 1: accurate back then, but that's kind of the narrative that developed.
Speaker 1: But we're looking at something totally innovative and disruptive in
Speaker 1: the best of ways, when you're looking at giving more
Speaker 1: people that chance to take advantage of that mobility while
Speaker 1: also doing so in a way that's environmentally responsible and
Speaker 1: also making more use of this infrastructure that exists. And
Speaker 1: it only has value if you use it. I think
Speaker 1: of it kind of like Metcalf's law with networks, right,
Speaker 1: the network is only useful. It's only valuable if you
Speaker 1: have connections to it. Well, to me, like we're looking
Speaker 1: at these this network of airports across the United States
Speaker 1: and beyond, they would suddenly grow in usefulness as well
Speaker 1: when they start getting more utility, more people flying in
Speaker 1: and out of them. Then you start thinking about the
Speaker 1: impact on local economies. It becomes this cascading ripple effect
Speaker 1: that just gets really exciting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's an amazing time to be in aviation. Actually,
Speaker 3: I think the next couple of days, kids are going
Speaker 3: to see a real next shift, like people call it
Speaker 3: the Third Revolution and aviation, where you had like the turboprop,
Speaker 3: then you had the jet engine, and now you're going
Speaker 3: to have like the small electric airplane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating to look at sort of the circular
Speaker 1: nature of that and how the things we learn from
Speaker 1: one era can then be applied to the next one
Speaker 1: along with innovations in other areas. I can't wait to
Speaker 1: see where surf air goes from here. I'm really excited
Speaker 1: to see how your journey continues, and very excited to
Speaker 1: book that flight in twenty twenty six. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to put that on my calendar and check back in
Speaker 1: to see if that's a possibility, because I got places to.
Speaker 2: Go so well. Like I said, there's a number of
Speaker 2: flights you can even book.
Speaker 3: Put small planes and combustion engines in the way there.
Speaker 1: I definitely want to do that. I have never done that.
Speaker 1: I've never flown on a small aircraft, and I've always
Speaker 1: thought that that would be really interesting. So I'll have
Speaker 1: to look into that anyway, because i really feel like
Speaker 1: I need to experience it myself to get a full
Speaker 1: idea of what that's like. I've watched videos from past
Speaker 1: years when we were looking more at surf Air as
Speaker 1: sort of the catering to executive travel, and looking at
Speaker 1: those videos, I thought, Wow, what an incredible team y'all
Speaker 1: have over there in your company, and the experience was
Speaker 1: such a cultivated one. Clearly, that's a very different thing
Speaker 1: than what we're talking about with regional air mobility, but
Speaker 1: it had me excited just from seeing that because it's
Speaker 1: so far flung from the experience I think most people
Speaker 1: have when it comes to air travel. Right now, where
Speaker 1: they're talking about getting on a big plane and your
Speaker 1: seats are crammed as close as possible to fit as
Speaker 1: many passengers as possible, and you feel like you have
Speaker 1: no personal space, and it's just a very different experience.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I definitely would like to have the alternative
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 2: Well, we look forward to having you on board.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining the show. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jonathan. That was fantastic. Thank you.
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