The SATE Hydrogen Roadmap is bringing together expertise from across the aviation, transport, infrastructure and innovation sectors to explore the potential for hydrogen-powered aviation across Scotland’s Highlands and Islands.
The consortium brings together organisations with complementary expertise in regional aviation, sustainable transport, demand modelling, infrastructure, aircraft technology and strategic planning.
Over the course of the project, the consortium will help assess the opportunities and challenges associated with hydrogen aviation, including potential routes and applications, infrastructure requirements and the practical steps needed to support the transition to lower-carbon aviation across the region.
Meet the SATE Hydrogen Roadmap consortium
HITRANS
The Highlands and Islands Transport Partnership (HITRANS) is the statutory regional transport partnership covering the Highlands & Islands, in Scotland. HITRANS covers Eilean Siar (Western Isles), Orkney, Highland, Moray and most of the Argyll and Bute area. Working with Councils, the Scottish Government, Transport Scotland, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, transport operators and other work with stakeholders to improve transport services and infrastructure in the north of Scotland and on routes to the Highlands and Islands. For more information, visit HITRANS
Urban Foresight
Urban Foresight is a UK-based innovation consultancy specialising in sustainable transport, net zero and economic development. The company combines research, strategic planning and project development to help clients assess emerging technologies, identifyinfrastructure requirements and build robust business cases. Through stakeholder engagement and evidence-led analysis, Urban Foresight turns complex opportunities into practical roadmaps, supporting the transition to low-carbon transport and lasting economic benefits. For more information, visit Urban Foresight
EA Maven
EA Maven is a management consultancy firm focusing on solving the key challenges in the area of AAM through the provision of AAM strategy support, demand modelling, infrastructure design and due diligence services.
AeroTesseract is EA Maven’s integrated platform for market analysis, catchment intelligence, demand modelling, and scheduling that identifies where Regional and Urban Air Mobility are viable and transforms insights into actionable scenarios.
AeroTesseract™ unifies dynamic catchment analysis, market assessment, demand forecasting, scheduling, economics, energy and carbon into a single workflow. Define aircraft-specific catchments by drive time, average speed, minimum/maximum airport distance and bespoke constraints; generate custom indices for each airport or country system based on your own criteria. Start with quantified catchments and O/D flows; end with operator-ready schedules, fleet asks, revenues, energy requirements and CO₂ savings backed by auditable inputs. For more information, visit EA Maven
Hybrid Air Vehicles
Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd (HAV) is a UK-based leader in advanced, powerful aircraft technologies and the company behind Airlander, a family of innovative aircraft capable of delivering multi-day, high-payload flight across defence, passenger markets, and logistics. HAV’s first production aircraft, the Airlander 10, is capable of staying airborne for up to five days, and of carrying up to 10 tonnes or 130 passengers. This will be followed by Airlander Freighter, an aircraft suited to the logistics and freight market, capable of carrying up to 250 tonnes. For more information, visit Hybrid Air Vehicles
Cormorant
Cormorant SEAplanes Ltd is developing a configurable eight-seat STOL aircraft platform for sustainable regional aviation, designed to operate amphibiously or from under-used land sites together with airfields and airports. The aircraft is intended to support passenger, cargo, medevac and other essential-connectivity missions in remote and island regions, while evaluating SAF and hydrogen hybrid-powertrain pathways in line with certification practicality, infrastructure availability and operational requirements. Through the SATE Hydrogen Roadmap, Cormorant will contribute its aircraft-development and operator-focused insight to assess viable regional applications, route requirements and the infrastructure needed to enable future hydrogen-powered flight in Scotland’s Highlands and Islands. For more information, visit Cormorant Aerospace
About the SATE Hydrogen Roadmap
The SATE Hydrogen Roadmap is exploring how hydrogen could contribute to the future of sustainable aviation across Scotland’s Highlands and Islands, considering the aircraft, routes, infrastructure and wider ecosystem required to make hydrogen-powered flight a practical reality.
The work will build on SATE’s experience of supporting emerging aviation technologies and developing solutions for the unique challenges of remote and island communities.
