YUGO selects Ascendance Flight Technologies’ ATEA for future fleet of hybrid-electric VTOL aircraft

Following its announcement of acquiring Electra’s electric short take-off and landing (eSTOL) aircraft, Yugo, the Singaporean private aviation charter company and French startup Ascendance Flight Technologies, announced the signing of a contract for the purchase of Yugo’s first vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) hybrid-electric aircraft, with deliveries due to begin in 2025.

Ascendance Flight Technologies recently unveiled ATEA, adopting the “fan-in-wing” technology with an optimized hybrid-engine configuration.

The aircraft features a sky-view cabin and eight new-generation shrouded rotors set in a tandem wing configuration, which allows for increased power and a lower noise footprint. The hybrid-electric propulsion of the aircraft has been designed to reduce up to 80% of carbon emissions, compared to existing aircraft.

Jim Baldy, Yugo CEO and co-founder said “ATEA is the perfect aircraft solution to our main goal: bringing sustainable, affordable, tailor-made flying services to our customers. The range, the capacity and the flexibility of this hybrid-electric VTOL will allow us to fulfill, in the near future, the growing demand across APAC for convenient, eco-friendly and safe flights in the best way”.

Thibault Baldivia, Chief Customer Officer and co-founder of Ascendance commented, “Sustainable aviation isn’t a far-away dream, it is soon to become a reality. We fully trust that Yugo’s experience and capacity to operate a wide range of air mobility solutions will enable them to fully exploit ATEA’s features throughout the many uses we designed it for. The fast-evolving Asian market offers many opportunities to reinvent air mobility and we look forward to Yugo and ATEA participating in its evolution.”