In Payerne, a new aviation company aims for zero carbon
Sky2Share will offer a new model for business travel from 2024. Partner companies will purchase shares in aircraft with reduced CO₂ emissions.
While videoconferencing and soft mobility have become increasingly established in our professional lives, business travel by jet, although flourishing, no longer has a very good reputation. Restore their image by making them greener, less harmful from an environmental point of view, such is the mission that Selim Franko has set for himself.
This serial entrepreneur, as he defines himself, based in Pully (VD), trained in marketing before going through finance and investment, notably at UBP in Geneva, was looking, at 55, for a challenge that makes sense. “Decarbonization has interested me for a long time, but in what area? It was then that I said to myself that the electrification of private aviation was still a vast project.”
He inquired with André Borschberg’s company H55, in Sion, which put him in contact with the French company VoltAero, managed by Jean Botti, ex-CTO of the Airbus Group, in Charente-Maritime. “I went there with my wife, in a Fiat 500 hybrid, and we were able to appreciate the development of Cassio aircraft with hybrid, thermal and electric propulsion, capable of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30%.” They will subsequently be able to operate on liquid hydrogen, as well as bio gasoline, a fuel for which tests have just been crowned with success. The hybrid electric version has also just received the Janus label of excellence, issued by the French Design Institute.