Akihabara News (Tokyo) — Four companies have signed an agreement to construct what might become the first permanent eVTOL vertiport in Japan.
Three Japanese firms are part of the alliance–Park24, Kanematsu Corporation, and Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance Company–as well as the United Kingdom-based Skyports.
The agreement calls for the construction of a vertiport in a corner of an existing parking lot owned by Park24 in the Kansai region. The plan is to open the vertiport in 2025, when it will connect with the 2025 World Expo on the manmade island of Yumeshima.
Park24 plans to supplement eVTOL operations with a car-sharing service that will operate from the same parking lot, helping to bring passengers to and from the air taxi service.
If all goes well during the World Expo, the partners would then gradually expand their services, with their eye already focused on possible routes between Narita International Airport and central Tokyo.
It is not clear how this new partnership intersects with the alliance announced in February between Kanematsu, Skyports, Japan Airlines (JAL), and Brazil-based Eve Air Mobility, but it does seem possible that these are related initiatives, since one appears to be mainly engaged in vertiport construction and the other on an air taxi service, though the division of labor has yet to be clarified.
The emerging web of eVTOL partnerships suggests that there may be several rival air taxi services operating in Japan in 2025–the one outlined above; another linking All Nippon Airways (ANA), Joby Aviation, and Toyota; and perhaps a third centered on SkyDrive and its partners.
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