Jens Flottau, Graham Warwick United Airlines, under CEO Scott Kirby, has some big plans that include pushing sustainability.
Jens Flottau, Graham Warwick
United Airlines forecasts around 100 potential routes for the ES-19. Credit: United Airlines
Once upon a time, United Airlines was best known for lost bags, frequently appalling customer service and an aging fleet. Its slogan, “Fly the Friendly Skies,” did not describe an experience attested to by many customers. And at times, the airline was operating a not very creative hub-and-spoke model that missed opportunities in both the domestic and international markets.
The company previously known in many respects for its old-school style is now about to be perceived as the avant-garde of the global airline industry. In February, United placed a $1 billion conditional order for Archer Aviation electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing air taxis. Then, it signed a purchase agreement with Boom for 15 Overture supersonic aircraft. Its environmental targets are far beyond those of the rest of the industry, as United aims to be carbon-neutral without offsets by 2050. The carrier plans to “transform the customer experience” by retrofitting the cabins of its entire existing fleet and expanding the share of premium seats, too. And now another remarkable deal it has struck is leaving the sector puzzled.
United Airlines and its regional affiliate Mesa Airlines conditionally agreed to order 200 19-passenger electric airliners from Heart Aerospace as part of a deal that includes investing in the Swedish startup. The battery-powered ES-19 is expected to enter service in 2026.
The driving force behind the initiatives is Scott Kirby, United’s CEO since 2020. After holding senior leadership positions at America West, US Airways and American Airlines, Kirby became United’s president in 2016. Now that he has assumed a CEO role for the first time in his career, there appears to be no stopping him and his ambitions. Whether they all will play out as planned is another story. “We are creating a new era driven by innovation,” he says.
“Don’t focus too much on the industrial logic and whether it all makes sense,” says Tailwind Consultants CEO Mo Garfinkle, an inside expert on the U.S. airline industry for decades. “Scott is beginning to observe his leadership [at United] and industry leadership. He could be the new Bob Crandall,” Garfinkle says, referring to American Airline’s legendary former CEO.
The plans put forward “are a manifestation of [Kirby’s] big-thinker aptitude,” he continues. “He has a magnificent ability to capture a landscape. Scott does not want United and the industry to be left behind as a dinosaur, like steamships or the railroads.” This is especially important as a new generation of customers is putting a much greater emphasis on environmental sustainability, Garfinkle contends.
He believes it is “too early to develop a business plan” for the ES-19 operation or any of the other initiatives. United is not devoting a lot of financial or staff resources to them for the time being, but the financing it provides is enough for Heart Aerospace to move further ahead. “It is low risk now, potential reward later,” Garfinkle says.
“Kirby is throwing mud against the wall to see what sticks,” he says. “[And] it is good PR for United with the younger generation of customers and puts them on the right track politically.”
United Airlines Ventures and Mesa Air Group participated in Gothenburg, Sweden-based Heart’s $35 million Series A funding round led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Heart seed investors EQT Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital also participated in the round.
The Series A funding will enable Heart to select suppliers, build the ground demonstrator and take the ES-19 through its preliminary design review (PDR), scheduled for 2022.
The funding will also enable Heart to build up its team, which totals 40-45 people and has been boosted recently with the hiring of personnel from stalled regional jet developer Mitsubishi Aircraft and defunct supersonic startup Aerion.
The 200 ES-19s will be split equally between United and Mesa. In the 1990s, before regional turboprops were deemed uneconomical and retired, Mesa was the world’s largest operators of 19-seaters.
“I’m confident there is a market for this,” says Bill Swelbar, chief industry analyst at the Swelbar-Zhong Consultancy. “But I’m stumbling over the infrastructure questions.” United says the ES-19 could operate on about 100 of its regional routes from most of its hubs. The airline cited Chicago O’Hare International Airport to Purdue University Airport in Indiana or San Francisco International Airport to Modesto City-County Airport in California as possible examples from its primary hubs.
“We expect the short-haul regional air travel market to play a key role in the evolution of the electric aircraft,” says Michael Leskinen, United’s vice president for corporate development and investor relations. “As battery technology improves, larger-gauge aircraft should become viable, but we’re not going to wait to begin the journey. . . . Together [with Heart Aerospace], we can scale the availability of electric airliners and use them for passenger flights within the next five years.”
“A lot of work has to be done at the airports to accommodate this, and not a whole lot of planning is going on right now,” Swelbar says. “2026 is not very far away, and we also have to talk about air traffic control issues.” He questions whether hubs will end up being the primary use case for the ES-19 and whether the aircraft will be deployed more “to rural America.”
But Swelbar notes: “There is an audience [Kirby] is trying to speak to, and the new tech messaging is consistent. There is a strategy here, and it plays.”
Hamlin Transportation Consulting President George Hamlin points to what could be an inconsistency in United’s regional setup. The airline just placed a big order for 200 additional Boeing 737 MAXs and 70 Airbus A321neos while also announcing that it would retire about 200 50-seat regional jets. “United is leading the upgauging trend,” Hamlin says, of what used to be its regional fleet, which would not be supported by the addition of a large fleet of 19-seaters.
He also cautions that the industry in general abandoned 19-seaters long ago—and with them the ultra-short-range flying that would now compete with ground transportation. Hamlin is concerned that not much is known about the operating economics of the aircraft.
Heart Aerospace projects a cost saving of 30% from using electric versus turboprop propulsion, assuming a battery life of 1,000 cycles—with 3,000 cycles achievable over time—and adding a cost-per-kWh premium for aerospace-grade battery packs.
“But the big difference is a step-function reduction in motor versus engine maintenance cost,” Heart CEO Anders Forslund says. “Airlines did not stop flying 19-seaters because they could not fly far enough but because they were not economic. We are building an aircraft with great unit economics.”
The point about range is debatable, though. Current regional hub feeding is not only based on smaller gauge but also on range capabilities that allow airlines to pull traffic from “cities 2-3 hubs away,” Hamlin says. The ES-19 would not cover that segment because of its range limitations, even if battery technology advances enough to make longer distances possible.
There will be operational challenges as well, Hamlin points out. With landing delays expected at congested hubs, conventional aircraft can simply take on more fuel, but there could be less margin for this and diversions to other airports if the maximum range is so limited from the outset.
The ES-19 will have a maximum range initially of 400 km (250 mi.) using commercially available batteries. “But we will not start out flying those ranges,” Forslund says. “In the U.S., we are looking at 50-100-mi. routes. Mesa’s average route with its 19-seaters was 172 mi.”
The range is expected to increase as operators and regulators gain experience with electric aircraft and as both reserve requirements and battery technologies improve. Forslund notes that Swedish battery producer Northvolt acquired Boeing-backed lithium-metal battery supplier Cuberg in March.
Heart was founded in 2018 as a spinoff from a Swedish-funded electric aircraft research project. In 2020, the startup demonstrated the first iteration of its electric propulsion system, comprising a 400-kW motor, motor controller and lithium-ion battery pack with an integrated battery management system.
The company’s next step, Forslund says, is to build a ground demonstrator to show how the electric drivetrain can certifiably and safely power all the other aircraft subsystems, including avionics, flight controls and deicing mechanisms.
The ES-19 is a conventional aluminum-airframe aircraft powered by four electric propulsion systems packaged into four underwing nacelles. “We have modularized the design so that all the novelty is in the nacelles, and the rest is built like a conventional aircraft,” Forslund says.
Heart has issued requests for information to identify potential suppliers for the airframe and systems. “We are shifting gears a little,” he says. “We have been through an in-house PDR, and it is now about selecting top-tier suppliers.” Heart will be responsible for final assembly and flight testing in Gothenburg.
Because the ES-19 is resolutely conventional except for its propulsion system, Heart does not see the need to fly a demonstrator first. “Our flight-test aircraft will use the same jigs and moldings, the same certified suppliers as the production aircraft,” Forslund says.
