Regent Craft is working to make Nice, France, a coastal travel hub by bringing its electric-powered seagliders.
Key Details
- Regent is working with this luxury waterfront escape in France to bring its electric seagliders to transport vacationers.
- The goal is to make it a sustainable coastal travel hub.
- The partnership with Regent is the city’s first step toward sustainability.
Why it’s important
Nice has been working to become more sustainable and bring more investments to the area and Regent is part of the big plans.
Regent has created the seaglider, which is an all-electric wing-in-ground effect vehicle that flies just above the water’s surface.
The company’s goal with the seaglider is to reduce the cost and hassle of regional transportation between coastal cities.
Nice bringing the seagliders to the city not only brings sustainability and more investments, but it also brings another form of transportation to the city.
“We’re looking forward to collaborating with Mayor Estrosi and the opportunity to share our technology and network development expertise with Nice, in the south of France and along the European coast. The future of coastal transportation is well on its way for Nice,” says Regent CEO Billy Thalheimer.
Regent and the city will identify necessary policy reforms, develop best practices for infrastructure zoning and recommend new laws and collaborate with community organizations to identify transportation gaps and solutions to increase connectivity memorandum of understanding.
“In so many ways, this is the perfect city to develop a global mark for one of the world’s first electric seaglider networks, reducing the environmental impact of flights, cars and maritime vehicles that use fossil fuels and making passenger and cargo transportation more accessible and affordable to support the local economy. It’s an ideal solution for this timeless UNESCO World Heritage city,” says Thalheimer.
Other Regent partnerships
Regent has formed a partnership with energy company TotalEnergies in order to bring sustainable flights to offshore wind and oil platforms.
The company also plans to have 12-passenger planes in operation by 2025 and have some in the commercial space by 2028.
Hawaiian Airlines invested in the company with hopes to bring the seagliders to the islands.
“Innovative inter island transportation has been core to our business since 1929 when we replaced steam ships with airplanes. We are excited to be an early investor in Regent and to be involved in developing its largest seaglider—a vehicle with great potential for Hawaii,” says Hawaiian Air CMO Avi Mannis.