The Nordic region’s pace-setting push into green transport is set to extend from cars to the air-travel market.

Iceland this month signaled plans to move toward carbon-free domestic flights by the end of the decade, while Sweden’s Heart Aerospace aims to deliver an electric plane specifically designed to ply routes linking remote Scandinavian settlements within six years.

Coordinating the region’s initiatives is the Nordic Network for Electric Aviation, founded last year and tying together airport authorities and five airlines including Finnair Oyj, Icelandair Group and SAS AB, alongside Heart and other technology innovators. The emphasis on cleaner flights follows Norway’s strides toward banishing the combustion engine, with more than half the cars sold there now electric.

“We have an opportunity here to show the world what’s possible, and also to give the industries in our countries the opportunity to be front-runners and build this market,” said Maria Fiskerud, the NEA’s project manager and former adviser to the Swedish government on aviation biofuels.

The group has received 12 million kronor ($1.4 million) in combined funding from its members and the governments of Sweden, Denmark, […]