Urban-Air Port Enters Japan Market

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — UK-based vertiport developer Urban-Air Port has entered the Japan market, forming a partnership with Tokyo-based technology firm Blue Innovation.

Urban-Air Port has been in the industry headlines in recent weeks for exhibiting its prototype vertiport in a location in the city center of Coventry, England, raising public awareness about the imminent arrival of the eVTOL era.

Urban-Air Port Chief Financial Officer Adrian Zanelli says that his firm “regards Japan as a highly-important market.”

To that end, Urban-Air Port will offer its vertiport design as a basis for testing Blue Innovation’s vertiport information system Blue Earth Platform Port.

This is an integrated system that aims to track the port’s operational status, eVTOL flights, unexpected intrusions, wind direction and wind speed, and basically to confirm overall conditions that will allow eVTOLs to take off and land safely.

Zanelli states, “Working together with Blue Innovation in Japan, we will proceed on development and create the best-in-class platform and technologies.”

Without providing details, the partners also indicated that they plan to conduct demonstrations of their vertiport systems within Japan.

Blue Innovation has been working on related technologies in collaboration with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism and the University of Tokyo since 2016.

Another UK-based vertiport company, Skyports, has also been expanding its partnerships within Japan, and it seems that competition is already heating up years ahead of the expected launch of eVTOL taxi services, which may not get underway in earnest until 2025.

Domestic firms are also known to be investigating entry into the anticipated Japan vertiport market.