A year and a half after Universal Hydrogen first unveiled plans for a $254 million manufacturing facility in Albuquerque, the California company announced a slew of additional milestones on its path to hydrogen-powered flight while delaying updates on its multimillion-dollar New Mexico site.
In mid-September, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a G-1 Issue Paper to Universal Hydrogen. That paper sets specific regulations required by the FAA to fully certify the Hawthorne, California-based company's design to convert a specific model of regional aircraft to fly using hydrogen power.
A model ATR-72 regional aircraft retrofitted with Universal Hydrogen's hydrogen fuel cell-powered electric powertrains flew in early March thanks to an experimental airworthiness certificate. That marked the first time the company had flown a hydrogen fuel cell-powered aircraft. It took place in Moses Lake, Washington.
But the company recently shifted its flight test operations to Mojave, California — the testing base of another well-known innovative aviation company with links to New Mexico, Virgin Galactic. Universal Hydrogen held a "kickoff" event for its flight test and maturation campaign in Mojave on Sept. 26, during which a hydrogen-powered aircraft flew for about 20 minutes and reached 5,000 feet above mean sea level.
That marked the 10th test flight for the clean aviation company, which hopes its hydrogen fuel cell retrofitted aircraft can enter commercial service in 2026 — a slight delay from its previous 2025 target.
The same day Universal Hydrogen publicized its 10th test flight, the company announced it had reached another milestone, this one with a much larger figure.
According to the company, 250 regional aircraft are booked to be retrofitted with its hydrogen fuel cell electric powertrains, it announced Sept. 26. Those conversion kits replace existing kerosene-burning gas turbines on regional passenger aircraft with hydrogen fuel cells and electric motors, per a Universal Hydrogen news release.
Customers for its conversion kits include France-based Amelia Airlines and Massachusetts-based Connect Airlines, the latter of which has said it plans to roll out regional routes throughout the Southwest. That could include flights from Albuquerque to Phoenix or Albuquerque to Denver, for example.
"We could activate that network with just four aircraft," John Thomas, Connect Airlines' CEO, told Albuquerque Business First this summer. "It may not sound like much in terms of the four aircraft, but if those four aircraft replace the existing aircraft doing those services, there'd be a saving of just over 70 million pounds of [carbon dioxide] a year."
But while Universal Hydrogen's customer base and flight test campaigns take off, updates on its Albuquerque site remain grounded.
Kate Gundry, a representative for the company, told Business First in a Sept.19 email that it could be six to eight weeks until Universal Hydrogen has more of an update on its Albuquerque manufacturing facility. That's because the company has been "heads down" on FAA certification and resuming its test flight campaign, Gundry wrote in the email.
"[The manufacturing facility] is such an important part of everything we're trying to achieve," Jon Gordon, general counsel for Universal Hydrogen, told Business First in an interview Sept. 29. "We've made a lot of progress on site planning and architecture, and we hope to have an exciting announcement on that front by the end of the year."
The company previously stated a goal of starting manufacturing in 2024. That timeframe depends largely on how quickly Universal Hydrogen is able to raise public and private financing, construction permitting and how long it takes to actually build the facility, Gordon said.
The site of Universal Hydrogen's planned manufacturing facility — the Aviation Center of Excellence near the Albuquerque International Sunport and Kirtland Air Force Base — was supposed to be the location for a multibillion-dollar satellite facility, called the Orion Center. But plans for that facility, to be developed by Theia Group Inc., fell through after the failed startup hit some major financial troubles and the City of Albuquerque backed away from the deal in late 2021.
Besides its manufacturing facility, which the company wants to use to build the modules that store hydrogen on board regional aircraft, Universal Hydrogen plans to set up centralized logistics facilities called "hydrogen depots" in different parts of New Mexico. Gordon told Business First this summer that the company would use those depots to fill hydrogen transport modules that would then be transported to airports to fuel hydrogen-powered aircraft.
"When we shift gears and we think of bringing the network to New Mexico, that's when it really starts to get interesting," Gordon said at the time. "That's where we're looking at off-take from producers, partners for transportation and then also looking to build logistics facilities in underserved communities and hiring people to run them."
