Fly electric between Liege, Maastricht and Aachen this summer
From 1 July to 31 August, you can take international electric flights between Liège, Maastricht and Aachen. A European first in civil aviation.
The electric car is quietly gaining ground. Similarly, electric flying will be out of the starting blocks for the general public within 10 to 15 years. Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is already betting on this development with the Electrifly project, which aims to partially electrify the aircraft fleet. As a stunt, a preview is provided this summer: you can commute in a two-seater plane between the three aforementioned destinations in the Belgian-Dutch-German Euregio. The flight time remains well below the 50 minutes the aircraft can stay in the air.
Electric aircraft are not a novelty, but until now they have been used for training purposes, take-offs and landings, especially in Liège and Antwerp. For small-scale flights, with few seats and limited range. The lithium-ion batteries currently used are too heavy and would require too much energy for long-haul flights. But it is being worked on. Within a decade or so, an aircraft that could seat 90 passengers and have a range of 500 to 600 km could become a reality.
The future of the sector looks varied: air taxis and electric for short flights, hydrogen for middle-distance and sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) based on vegetable and cooking oil and animal fats (among others) for long-haul flights.