Sustainable aviation discussion panel - roadmap of how we set up a system - Bertrand Magras - St.Barth Commuter

Our new episode of the sustainable aviation discussion panel takes you to a very special and well-known island - St. Barts. We have the pleasure to talk with Bertrand Magras. Bertrand is the Managing Partner of St Barth Commuter, located on the exclusive island of St Barthelemy in the Caribbean. After studying Aviation Business Administration at Embry-Riddle in Florida, Bertrand joined the family business where he acted as pilot, Airworthiness Manager and Flight Crew Training Manager before becoming the General Manager in January 2017. Close your eyes, imagine yourself in St.Barth and follow our discussion thoroughly, here are some essential points remember:

• It is clear and obvious that aviation needs to keep seeking solutions to minimize environmental impact. I would like to stress on the keep.
• Last few years we’ve seen a lot of aviation bashing – we tend to forget all efforts and progress that has been made. Simple example – an Air France captain told me they used to take 100 tons of Jet Fuel for a flight to Paris to Caribbean, now we they need 55 to 60 tons.
• If you see numbers for an A350 – do a ration of liters for a number per passengers per kilometers, basically it is an equivalent of a car
• We need to keep going sustainability way and keep improve with the technology
• In our part of the world, sustainability is not on TOP of my list of challenges right now, simply because the technology is not available
• We are struggling with some other challenges – finding staff, especially maintenance technicians
• We’ve been following most of the projects that are going on – we see different paths – hybrid technologies, full electric… For me, the most advanced project at this point is the hybrid version.
• Interesting shift – we used to talk about Urban Air mobility – now it became Advanced Air Mobility. I am very curious of how it will go in Paris for Olympic games with eVTOL air taxis.
• Caribbean as a perfect region for eVTOLs implementations – necessity, challenges, and real-life operations
• We have to go step by step. First, the technology has be there. When you go into more sophisticated technics, we need regulators to come together and harmonize
• We need to have the same agenda – CARIBAVIA for example, it is a wonderful opportunity to having people to come together and really talk together. We need to do more of this.
• We need to have a roadmap of how we set up a system to address these challenges – are we trying to solve the problem globally or are we just getting a good consciousness 
• It’s great if we can be carbon neutral, but what about other countries, especially in a globalized market like aviation.