ZeroAvia Pushes Defense Focus With Hydrogen-electric ZA200

After scaling back its ambitious plans to convert regional aircraft to hydrogen propulsion, ZeroAvia is chasing potential dual-use military applications for its technology in a marked shift of its business model. The start-up’s new leadership team is prioritizing work on its ZA200, which is a 200-kilowatt fuel cell power generation system.

On July 8, ZeroAvia announced what it described as a strategic collaboration with the UK-based Marshall Aerospace “to explore hydrogen-electric capability for future defense applications.” Although this work is currently in the prototyping and evaluation phase, ZeroAvia believes the partnership could expedite its path to profitability by leveraging Marshall’s expertise in airframe integration and its knowledge of the defense ecosystem.

“The fact that we have a dual application of our solution was not really what we imagined a few years ago, but the reality is different now,” executive chair of the board Christine Ourmières-Widener told AIN. She recently took charge of ZeroAvia after the sudden departure of founder and CEO Val Miftakhov in late May.

ZeroAvia will not say when the “slimmed-down” power generation unit could enter operational use, but it claims to have prospective customers who want to start testing with prototype systems. The company has previously worked on larger ZA600 and ZA2000 propulsion systems intended to power aircraft with up to around 80 seats, but failed to meet its original goal of having conversion programs approved for installation by the end of 2025. 

According to ZeroAvia chief strategy officer James McMicking, the ZA200 is the “building block” of the larger 600-kilowatt system it had originally intended to bring to market first, the latter of which encompasses a proprietary electric motor. For now, ZeroAvia intends to pair its 200-kilowatt power generation system with a partner’s electric motor, a product that customers can integrate themselves. With potential dual-use applications ranging from drones to smaller trainer aircraft, the ZA200 “allows us to play in all of those markets and meet a customer appetite for research and development across a whole range of applications,” McMicking said.

Hydrogen Plans Pivot

According to Ourmières-Widener, ZeroAvia’s current focus follows a “reset” initiated late last year. Although the company announced it had completed a further round of financing in December 2025, extending its cash runway for the next two years, she told AIN that “the board wanted to explore if there was a possibility to go quickly to some revenue-positive application.”

Shifting staff patterns have also been central to a strategy now brought firmly back into the UK. Following rounds of redundancies, ZeroAvia’s manufacturing center in Everett, Washington—opened in April 2024—has also closed. A potential manufacturing site in Scotland, announced in May 2025, is “still on the map” as soon as “a number of units” enter production, Ourmières-Widener said.

However, the company has not planned any imminent flight testing from its headquarters in Kemble, Gloucestershire. McMicking explained that the prior conclusion of an initial modified Dornier Do228 campaign has fulfilled all objectives. Now ZeroAvia says it "focused on the disciplined process of developing a quantifiable, certifiable product, which is a different discipline.”

Other ongoing areas of focus include research into a high-temperature fuel cell stack for larger aircraft and an Aerospace Technology Institute-supported liquid hydrogen tank project. The approximately 10- to 11-kilogram tank (including adjacent systems) is scheduled for ground testing in 2027. ZeroAvia says its role in bringing aerospace-relevant knowledge to the system’s design is key, drawing on its experience as the only current CAA-approved design organization for hydrogen and electric powertrains.

Alongside the ZA200 development—something McMicking says is significant not just for the commercial opportunities offered as a standalone product, but as a “building block”—ZeroAvia intends to continue maturing the ZA600 effectively in parallel. While no updated timeline has been given for its potential certification and entry into service, Ourmières-Widener cited a “good relationship” with existing customers who understand that expectations shift. “It hadn’t been the main challenge, to be honest,” she said, adding that aligning an aerospace-applicable supply chain is now of paramount importance.

ZeroAvia has been talking to its investors “to make sure that everyone understands where [the company] is and what the objectives are.” While ZeroAvia remains convinced of its hydrogen-electric vision, “the way to achieve it, and maybe the steps to deliver it and to be in full production, are a little bit different,” she said. However, believing the company “has the resilience to adapt,” she added that ZeroAvia is now fully focused on “the first step [the ZA200] of the power generation [it] wants to deliver.”