Current developments to implement the More Electric Aircraft (MEA) result in a fundamental change of the aircraft systems architecture. Components may be resized or new components may be introduced. This results in new challenges for the thermal management and safety assessment of systems and therefore parametric and fast simulations tools will become crucial to explore the entire design space. The effects of component heat dissipation on airflow in the aircraft fuselage can be qualified using a zonal simulation model. Zonal airflow models subdivide the indoor space into typically 102 zones exchanging air. This allows to predict the impact of systems locations, ventilation and cooling strategies on the thermal management and safety considerations in an early design stage. This paper presents the setup of such an aircraft zonal model based on high-level requirements for a MEA of regional airplane size. These requirements cover the number of passengers, the flight profile and system components to be integrated, like e.g. the battery. Additional requirements are derived from standards for example providing information on required airflow rates and temperatures in the cabin. These requirements are translated into a geometry, ventilation pattern and systems layout. The model application is demonstrated on the example of the safety consideration in case of a battery failure leading to exhaust of harmful gas. This is done by comparing the gas dispersion for two different battery positions in the aircraft.