Runway Girl Network is pleased to provide an audio recording of our full interview with ZeroAvia founder and CEO Val Miftakhov.

This interview was conducted on the sidelines of the International Air Transport Association’s World Sustainability Symposium in Coral Gables, Florida. Miftakhov discusses ZeroAvia’s funding and a potential IPO at Minute 15:15.

CORAL GABLES — ZeroAvia, which is working to bring the world’s first zero-emission engines to commercial aviation, is hopeful of receiving initial certification at the end of 2025 for its hydrogen-electric powertrain for regional turboprops carrying up to 20 seats. When shipments of the so-called ZA600 engine begin — and if the time is right — founder and CEO Val Miftakhov intends to take the company public as early as 2026, Miftakhov revealed to Runway Girl Network at the IATA World Sustainability Symposium.

Aiding the certification process is ZeroAvia’s robust flight-test program, which started in 2019 when the British/American firm started testing a smaller 250kW hydrogen-electric powertrain on a six-seat Piper Malibu aircraft. “I was actually our first test pilot,” noted Miftakhov. Another six-seater testbed with a new generation of powerplant was later pressed into service.

Then, on 19 January 2023, zero-emission flight took a massive step forward when ZeroAvia’s 19-seat Dornier 228 testbed, retrofitted with a full-size prototype hydrogen-electric powertrain on the left wing of the aircraft, left the company’s R&D facility at Cotswold Airport in Gloucestershire, UK and took to the skies for a 10-minute flight.

“The latest prototype that we’re flying, this 19-seater, required us to go pretty much all the way, almost to certification because the amount of safety justification, amount of structural work analysis that we had to do, and various other exotic things, is close to the certification load,” Miftakhov explained.

“We have one active flight test vehicle and [are] bringing up the second one in the UK,” he added. “So, these are 19-seat aircraft with the 500kW version of our engine, and we submitted those engines for certification already. So, since December last year, [we’ve been] working with the FAA and the Civil Aviation Authority in the UK to certify those engines; hopefully initial certification by end of next year, end of ’25.”

Every time ZeroAvia flight-tests its hydrogen-electric powertrain technology in the US or the UK, it must seek and receive approval from safety regulators for permission to fly. Consequently, regulators are very much part of ZeroAvia’s journey.

Earlier this month, the firm announced it has raised an additional $150 million, after completing a Series C financing round; a £20 million investment from Scottish National Investment Bank joined recent investments from American Airlines, International Airlines Group (IAG) and ITOCHU Corporation. Prior to that, in July, ZeroAvia was awarded a UK government grant that provides additional funding to cover technical developments “which is important because, you know, Aerospace Technology Institute over there does a lot of technical diligence before they actually give out grants. And that helped us with the investors as well,” Miftakhov told RGN.

“We got some very good technical achievements on the high temperature fuel cell. There’s a new generation of fuel cells that will be relevant for large aircraft and that brought a lot of additional interest from players like Airbus and such. So, we’ve delivered on our targets. We’re able to raise the pretty good round, oversubscribed round in the end. So, we wanted to raise a little over $100 [million]. We ended up raising, I think we announced it over $150 million.”

He added:

Until we have profitability as a company, we’ll probably have another round of financing next year. And then as we start shipping the product, if the markets are good, I plan to take the company public. So that could happen as early as 2026 for us, in two years. But we’ll see what the markets do.

Meanwhile, the company is also designing a larger hydrogen-electric engine, dubbed ZA2000, for larger regional aircraft such as the Bombardier CRJ700, which American Airlines operates (the US major in July made a conditional purchase of 100 ZeroAvia engines.)

To that end, ZeroAvia has “actually done a good amount of work” with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which acquired the CRJ program in 2020, and that work confirmed that “our engines will work with CRJ”, Miftakhov said. “We’ve done the CRJ700 specifically, which will be applicable to CRJ900 as well. So these are 70-90 seat regional aircraft that American actually flies and a number of other operators.”

Airbus, which itself is working to bring hydrogen-powered aircraft to market, is also a key investor and partner to ZeroAvia. With growing momentum behind the technology, including Airbus’ plans for a clean sheet aircraft design, ZeroAvia feels it is hitting the market at just the right time. “In some places in Europe, people stopped flying already or reduced flying. Some governments even started clamping down like France, for example. So people want it, airlines want it,” said the ZeroAvia CEO.

To date, ZeroAvia has secured orders for about 2,200 engines from various operators and cargo carriers. Airports are also “very excited” about the new hydrogen fuel, said Miftakhov “because they see potential for production of fuel at the airports and taking some of that value chain from the oil and gas manufacturers. So [a] better economic situation, more capture of economic value in the communities. So airports are quite excited about it. So everybody really is energized around hydrogen. And now the only hurdle we need to cross is certification of the first system.”

In terms of ZeroAvia’s technology roadmap, Miftakhov mapped out a plan that will see the firm provide certified retrofit-ready powertrains, then move into a linefit scenario, and ultimately provide the engine for a ‘clean sheet design’ aircraft. “Obviously, the most efficient way to integrate those engines into aircraft is to design the aircraft around them,” he noted.

“Once we see converted aircraft flying around, delivering safe service and being economically attractive, people will start designing aircraft around these engines. We already have a couple of projects like that, with smaller manufacturers. But Airbus announced the three different clean sheet concepts, and generally I think the sweet spot for the size of those is around 100-150 seats and up, because it will take us, for example, about ten years probably to get the engines out there certified for that sized aircraft, and it takes about the same time to design, build, prototype, test and bring the new clean sheet aircraft of that size to the market. So it’s a good timing convergence.”

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Featured image credited to ZeroAvia