Destinus

Sometimes receiving a shipment quickly can be a matter of life or death. Destinus works with existing shipping providers to offer hyper express delivery service when a client needs it most at a comparable price to traditional air cargo transport.

In the long run, Destinus could begin offering cargo services, operating a park of small vehicles suitable to carry the order of a ton anywhere in the world. The company’s hyper express delivery service is a whole new class of delivery that can move objects from any major metropolitan airport to another in under 2 hours.

In the future, the company also intends to use its technology to build passenger vehicles that can transport tens to hundreds of people, for example, from Europe to Australia in an hour and a half.

Destinus is headquartered in Canton Vaud, Switzerland, and has offices and facilities in Munich, Madrid, and Toulouse. The company has a team of more than 50 motivated and qualified engineers and managers from Arianespace, Boeing, Airbus, ESA, DLR, Dassault Aviation, Rolls-Royse, Safran, and other aerospace companies. Destinus’ chairman of the Advisory Board is the former minister of Economics and Technology and the vice-chancellor of Germany.

Ultra-fast freight is powered by the hyperplane — the first-of-its-kind hybrid between an airplane and a rocket that travels to near-space heights at 15 times the speed of sound. It will take off and land horizontally from airports using a hydrogen-fed airbreathing jet engine integrating seamlessly with other planes when it passes controlled airspace. Once a certain altitude and speed are reached, the hyperplane will switch to a cryogenic hydrogen rocket engine that will accelerate the aircraft to hypersonic velocity.

Most importantly, the hyperplane under development will use liquid hydrogen to fuel its engines. That gives the great opportunity to fly fast and at the same time be carbon neutral. The only emission of such engines is water.

Significant progress is already made — the company has designed and filed patents for the unique subsystems, such as a hydrogen active cooling system, enabling a highly reusable hyperplane to fly at almost the speed of a rocket.

The Destinus team proved their idea by developing and manufacturing two prototypes - the Jungfrau and Eiger that conducted flights at an airport near Munich.

The company is operating in a huge and growing market. Although land and ship cargo transportation remain favourable options, goods transport by air is considered the quickest and the unhindered mode of transportation. The global air freight market reached US$ 270.3 billion in 2021. Looking forward, the market is projected to reach a value of $390.7B by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 6% during 2022-2027.

The air freight industry is moderately fragmented. The industry is dominated by some of the major players operating in multiple regions across the world. The growing demand for air freight transportation services has posed new challenges to air cargo service providers. Airlines need to focus on implementing fuel-efficient solutions and accommodating innovative technologies to provide cost-effective services.

Destinus sees a huge potential in cooperation with existing market participants – air carriers, express delivery companies, e-commerce and logistic operators. The company aims to provide solutions for ultra-fast freight that can reduce express delivery times anywhere globally from the current 48-72 hours to 6-12 hours or less.