Skyports and Kanematsu partner together to launch commercial passenger and cargo missions in Japan

Sky­ports has signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing with Japan­ese trad­ing com­pa­ny Kane­mat­su Cor­po­ra­tion, as both com­pa­nies look to facil­i­tate the deploy­ment and oper­a­tion of advanced air mobil­i­ty ser­vices for pas­sen­ger and car­go mis­sions in the coun­try.

The col­lab­o­ra­tion began last year with a focus on ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture and engag­ing in joint research, as well as pro­vid­ing a plat­form for dis­cus­sions with local, pub­lic and pri­vate stake­hold­ers. This month, the agree­ment has been extend­ed to include the drone deliv­ery mar­ket.

Dun­can Walk­er, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer at Sky­ports, said: “Estab­lish­ing a pres­ence in new mar­kets, espe­cial­ly in an emerg­ing indus­try, requires con­sid­er­able exper­tise, as well as detailed under­stand­ing of local reg­u­la­to­ry and polit­i­cal frame­works. Work­ing with part­ners such as Kane­mat­su, we have a world-class, local pres­ence which will do much to sup­port our first steps to suc­cess in Japan.”

“Kane­mat­su shares our aspi­ra­tion of unlock­ing the sky for advanced air mobil­i­ty, and this col­lab­o­ra­tion brings us one con­sid­er­able step clos­er to launch­ing suc­cess­ful com­mer­cial AAM oper­a­tions in the region.”

Sky­ports already has a pres­ence in Asia, after work­ing with Ger­man start­up Volo­copter to build the world’s first full-scale air taxi ver­ti­port — known as the Volo­Port. It was show­cased to the pub­lic in Sin­ga­pore in 2019 and its mod­u­lar design can be eas­i­ly adapt­ed to fit rooftops, rail­way sta­tions, park­ing lots and oth­er met­ro­pol­i­tan loca­tions.

More recent­ly, eVTOL Insights spoke to Sky­ports’ Head of Asia-Pacif­ic, Yun-yuan Tay as part of its pop­u­lar pod­cast series. He spoke in more detail about the com­pa­ny’s plans for the eVTOL air­craft mar­ket in the region.

Kane­mat­su is involved in a wide range of busi­ness­es through its four seg­ments: Motor Vehi­cles & Aero­space, Elec­tron­ics & Devices, Steel, Mate­ri­als & Plant and Foods, Meat & Grain. In the aero­space sec­tion, it is look­ing to proac­tive­ly expand this busi­ness area to eVTOL, UAV, heli­copter, fixed-wing, engine and infra­struc­ture.

Yoshiya Miyabe, senior man­ag­ing exec­u­tive offi­cer, chief offi­cer, motor vehi­cles and aero­space divi­sion at Kane­mat­su, said: “We are excit­ed to have a strong part­ner­ship with Sky­ports, the world leader in ground infra­struc­ture solu­tions for AAM and drone deliv­ery. We see a huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for AAM and drone deliv­ery to ben­e­fit the future of trans­porta­tion for both peo­ple and goods.

“Togeth­er we will bring forth inno­va­tions in avi­a­tion and help to rev­o­lu­tionise air mobil­i­ty and trans­port logis­tics to ben­e­fit people’s lives, com­mu­ni­ties and coun­tries’ economies, in an envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able and respon­si­ble man­ner.”

As well as Sky­ports, Volo­copter also has plans for Japan. It signed an agree­ment with Japan Air­lines last year to help devel­op and launch urban air mobil­i­ty ser­vices with­in the next three years.

While Japan­ese eVTOL air­craft devel­op­er Sky­Drive com­plet­ed the first pub­lic test flight of its SD-03 fly­ing car last year. Short­ly after­wards, it raised ¥3.9 bil­lion in Series B fund­ing and has joined an ongo­ing round­table in Osa­ka to realise its poten­tial.

The round­table was set up as the core organ­i­sa­tion to accel­er­ate the ini­tia­tive led by the Pub­lic-Pri­vate Con­fer­ence for Future Air Mobil­i­ty, which was cre­at­ed by the Japan­ese Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Trans­port and Indus­try (METI).