SK Telecom joins partnership to commercialise urban air mobility operations in Korea

SK Tele­com — the South Kore­an wire­less telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions oper­a­tor — has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing with the Korea Air­ports Cor­po­ra­tion, Han­wha Sys­tems and the Korea Trans­port Insti­tute to help accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty in Korea.

As mem­bers of ‘UAM Team Korea,’ an indus­try-acad­e­mia-research coun­cil and pol­i­cy com­mu­ni­ty launched by the Kore­an Gov­ern­ment, the four par­ties will work to help realise the government’s roadmap through col­lab­o­ra­tive research and devel­op­ment in all relat­ed areas includ­ing infra­struc­ture, air­crafts, air traf­fic, demand and recep­tiv­i­ty.

The pub­lic-pri­vate con­sul­ta­tion com­pa­ny, which also includes Hyundai Motor Group, plans to devel­op and com­mer­cialise drone taxis in the coun­try by 2025.

Ryu Young-sang, Pres­i­dent of MNO at SKT, said: “Through close part­ner­ship with the Korea Air­ports Cor­po­ra­tion, Han­wha Sys­tems, and the Korea Trans­port Insti­tute, we will accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of urban air mobil­i­ty in Korea and gain indus­try lead­er­ship by intro­duc­ing a new and inno­v­a­tive mobil­i­ty infra­struc­ture.”

Under the MOU, SKT will test and build com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­work mod­els for urban air mobil­i­ty, where sta­ble and reli­able con­nec­tiv­i­ty between air­crafts and ground infra­struc­ture is essen­tial.

SKT will also devel­op a urban air mobil­i­ty-based ser­vice plat­form to pro­vide all relat­ed ser­vices — such as book­ing and tran­sit — in an inte­grat­ed man­ner to pro­vide seam­less mobil­i­ty to cus­tomers, allow­ing them to effi­cient­ly trav­el using modes of trans­port, includ­ing urban air mobil­i­ty vehi­cles, bus, train and car.

The Korea Air­ports Cor­po­ra­tion will build and oper­ate infra­struc­ture includ­ing ver­ti­ports, and man­age urban air mobil­i­ty traf­fic, while Han­wha Sys­tems will devel­op air­crafts as well as solu­tions for traf­fic con­trol and nav­i­ga­tion. The Korea Trans­port Insti­tute will con­duct stud­ies to fore­cast  the demand and recep­tiv­i­ty for urban air mobil­i­ty.

Going for­ward, the four par­ties expect their efforts to con­tribute to reduc­ing social costs caused by traf­fic con­ges­tion in large cities and help sus­tain­able trans­porta­tion take root in Korea.