In a sprawling facility alongside this city’s airport, a company with deep Orange County ties is developing a new jet that its builders hope will become a new way of flying.
Instead of a plane that is a long tube, Long Beach-based JetZero is developing a wedge-shaped plane called Z4 that is designed to be more climate friendly and convenient for passengers. Planned features range from lower harmful emissions, less noise, faster boarding and a more comfortable interior layout with individual storage bins over each seat.
Passengers will be able to view the seemingly infinite skies “through a series of high-definition exterior cameras,” the company said.
“It’s going to be a much quieter airplane,” CEO Thomas O’Leary told the Business Journal during a July 18 tour of JetZero’s facility.
The designers are using advanced aerodynamics to reduce Z4’s fuel consumption by up to 50% compared to today’s commercial jets. The two jet engines will be located on top of the plane, sending noise upward for a quieter airplane.
The Z4’s shape bears a vague resemblance to the outline of the B-2 bombers that pounded Iran’s nuclear sites in June. Technically it is called “blended-wing-body,” known in the industry as BWB, combining the wings and the fuselage in one.
The Co-Founders
JetZero was founded in 2021 by O’Leary and Mark Page, the company’s chief technology officer.
Page has been designing airplanes for more than four decades, including Douglas Aircraft’s MD-92 Propfan and Supersonic High-Speed-Civil-Transport and the MD-90 Jetliner; he was the technical program manager for the NASA/Douglas Blended-Wing-Body Program where he co-invented the modern BWB.
In 2012, Page co-founded Dzyne Technologies, an Irvine based company that nowadays is focusing on drones. Page had designed a BWB bizjet, which is now the basis for JetZero.
O’Leary was an early senior executive at Tesla Inc. as the director of sales and marketing, where he helped establish the company’s market-facing infrastructure. In 2015, he was hired as chief operating officer at Beta Technologies, which is building an all-electric aircraft.
JetZero’s executives, several of whom reside in Orange County, have plenty of experience in the aviation industry, including at Boeing, Airbus, Gulfstream Aerospace and the U.S. Navy’s Air Systems Command.
Its board of advisors includes industry heavyweights like Brian Barents, former CEO of Learjet, Steve Dickson, former administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration, and Barry Eccleston, former CEO of Airbus Americas.
The company has already attracted backing from United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines as well as the U.S. Air Force (see story this page).
In 2021, United Airlines launched United Airlines Ventures (UAV), a corporate venture fund targeting emerging companies that have the potential to influence the future of travel.
JetZero embraces that ethos, Andrew Chang, head of UAV, said in an April statement. United’s investment includes a conditional commitment to order up to 100 airplanes and an option for an additional 100.
“If successful, JetZero has the potential to evolve our core mainline business by developing aircraft with a bigger, more comfortable cabin experience for our customers while increasing fuel efficiency across our network,” Chang said. “United Airlines Ventures was created to support our efforts to find innovative companies that can enhance the customer travel experience and help the airline lower its carbon footprint, and we believe JetZero reflects that philosophy.”
$300M+ Financing Raised
The company has raised more than $300 million to date, O’Leary said.
As for entering commercial service he says: “2030 is the ultimate goal, but that’s hard. That’s only five years away.
Ideally, JetZero’s Z4 aims to give industry titans Boeing and Airbus a run for their money, assuming all stays on track. The jetliner will be produced in a mammoth $4.7 billion factory in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The timeline looks tight and probably optimistic. Construction of the factory is slated to start next year, with the first prototype jetliner scheduled to fly in the Mojave Desert in 2027.
The prototype will fly on a pair of conventional Pratt & Whitney jet engines. It will use existing engines to start rather than waiting for new propulsion systems that may take years for certification. JetZero’s board of advisors includes Mary Ellen Jones, a former vice president at Pratt & Whitney where she worked for 30 years.
Full scale production is scheduled to start in 2028 or 2029 in Greensboro, where more than 14,500 jobs are foreseen, with support from the state of North Carolina.
The company is working with the German conglomerate Siemens to build a factory that leverages the newest industrial AI tools to ensure the most efficient and cost-effective production and operating model.
“JetZero’s upcoming facility, powered by Siemens technologies, demonstrates that revitalizing American manufacturing is more than just a vision—it’s becoming reality,” said Barbara Humpton, president and CEO of Siemens USA in a June statement. “Together, we’re poised to accelerate innovation, create high-quality jobs, and position North Carolina as the next great U.S. aerospace hub—laying the foundation for a stronger, more competitive future.”
JetZero is now housed at the Long Beach Airport in a huge hangar area spanning 285,000 square feet that is home to its business operations, design team, cabin lab, fabrication shop and aero labs.
JetZero has 250 employees companywide with just over 100 at the Long Beach site.
The Z4 will hold about 250 passengers and have a range of 5,000 nautical miles (5,700 land miles), a bit more than you need for a Denver to Paris trans-Atlantic hop.
Instead of a narrow tube with one or two aisles, the cabin will offer six different cabin bays that can be customized by airlines. Seats will be a minimum of 18 inches wide with passengers able to reach their seats without walking through congested aisles or a galley.
O’Leary said the plane can be “tri-use”: passenger, cargo and military, while the price has not been determined.
It will be made from a carbon composite, an ultra-sturdy material that is already in use in airplanes today.
According to the technology trade publication SlashGear, the Z4 is “definitely up there among the strangest aircraft designs to ever take to the sky—but it’s got a solid functionality to back it up.”
JetZero Finds Strong Backing
JetZero has lined up some heavy-hitting companies and aerospace engineers for its futuristic-looking Z4 plane. Here is an overiew:
AIRLINE INDUSTRY
United Airlines in April announced an investment in JetZero.  The investment includes a “path” to order up to 100 airplanes and an option for an additional 100. The conditional purchase agreement is based on JetZero achieving development milestones.
JetZero is partnering with Delta Air Lines on the Z4 project, according to an announcement in March. Alaska Airlines invested as part of JetZero’s Series A in 2023 and was the first airline to do so.
GOVERNMENT
NASA has provided the company with a $7.5 million grant.
The U.S. Air Force said in 2023 it was investing $235 million in the project.
EXPERTS
Steve Dickson, former head of the Federal Aviation Administration, has joined the JetZero board of advisors, according to an announcement in September.
In April, JetZero added former assistant secretary of the Air Force, Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, to the company as strategic advisor for the commercialization efforts.
CEO Thomas O’Leary estimates that between 15 and 20 former McDonnell Douglas employees now work for JetZero. Chief Operating Officer Dan Da Silva worked for Douglas Aircraft, later acquired by Boeing.
Kevin Costelloe
LAX Yes, John Wayne Maybe
It will be several years before JetZero’s wedge-shaped jetliner enters commercial service, but there’s already the question whether we’ll see the airplane ferrying passengers into and out of John Wayne Airport.
Here’s the way JetZero CEO Thomas O’Leary sees things: “LAX for sure. Orange County and San Diego are a little tight on runway, so we’ll have to see about that. It’s a goal for sure.”
“The runway at John Wayne is only 5,700 feet,” he says. While many factors are involved, that length is considered close to the minimum for airplanes such as the Boeing 737, some models of which service John Wayne.
O’Leary said “one of our goals” is to let Jet Zero’s Z4 service John Wayne.
In fact, the engineers are working on the question of “how’s this plane going to fit in an airport like John Wayne?”
