A NEW CHAPTER IN AMPHIBIOUS AVIATION

The future of amphibious aviation is being shaped in unexpected places, and few stories illustrate this better than Jekta's.

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What began as a conversation in Delhi about unlocking India's waterways instead of building traditional airports has evolved into one of the most ambitious clean-sheet aircraft programmes in modern regional aviation. Today, the hydrogen-electric PHA-ZE 100 flying boat is positioning itself to redefine mobility across India, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, supported by growing demand, advancing hydrogen infrastructure and an orderbook spanning multiple continents. At the centre of this transformation is GEORGE ALAFINOV, CEO and Co-founder of Jekta.

INDIA'S VISION THAT SPARKED A NEW AMPHIBIOUS MODEL

Amphibious aviation is not a new idea, but for decades it has lived at the margins of commercial viability. Most of today’s seaplanes are ageing float-equipped aircraft originally designed between the 1960s and 1980s, expensive to operate and limited in scale. Yet in 2018, a fresh conversation in New Delhi shifted the perspective. Alafinov recalls travelling to India to meet senior government representatives, who were exploring alternatives to costly and environmentally disruptive airport construction. India’s policymakers saw an opportunity to use the country’s lakes, rivers and coastal regions as natural transport corridors instead of relying solely on runways. Rather than spending vast sums building airports with irreversible ecological impact, they wanted to unlock aviation via water,” he reflects. For a country with more than 7,400 kilometres of coastline, thousands of inland water bodies and a rapidly expanding middle class, the logic was compelling.