Japan Airlines chooses Vertical Aerospace’s VA-X4 from Avolon’s orderbook to create country’s eVTOL first ride-sharing network

Inter­na­tion­al air­craft leas­ing com­pa­ny Avolon and Japan Air­lines (JAL) have teamed up to com­mer­cialise zero-emis­sions eVTOL air­craft in Japan. 

The com­pa­ny, which is part of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space’s ecosys­tem of part­ners, will now work with JAL through its invest­ment and inno­va­tion affil­i­ate Avolon‑e. They will iden­ti­fy and tar­get local part­ners and cus­tomers, infra­struc­ture require­ments, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and a range of com­mer­cial mod­els to intro­duce the first eVTOL air­craft ride-shar­ing busi­ness­es in Japan.

Through this part­ner­ship, JAL will also have a right to pur­chase or lease up to 50 of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space’s VA-X4 eVTOL air­craft from Avolon, with an option to pur­chase or lease up to 50 addi­tion­al units.

Dómh­nal Slat­tery, Avolon CEO, said: “We con­tin­ue to iden­ti­fy part­ners who share the same vision to rev­o­lu­tionise air trav­el through zero-emis­sions eVTOL air­craft and shape the future of trav­el. This lat­est long-term part­ner­ship with JAL aligns us with one of Japan’s lead­ing air­lines on their jour­ney to sus­tain­abil­i­ty and to decar­boniz­ing air trans­port.

“The VA-X4 will be cer­ti­fied to CAA and EASA’s strin­gent safe­ty reg­u­la­tions. We believe JAL’s mul­ti-decade expe­ri­ence will prove invalu­able as Ver­ti­cal seeks type cer­tifi­cate val­i­da­tion with the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau, demon­strat­ing that the VA-X4 will be a glob­al eVTOL, uncon­strained by bor­ders.” 

Fol­low­ing Ver­ti­cal Aero­space’s merg­er with Broad­stone Acqui­si­tion Corp ear­li­er this year, Avolon announced a ground-break­ing deal worth $2 bil­lion for 500 air­craft. Through Avolon‑e, it will order air­craft val­ued at US$1.25 bil­lion and has an option to acquire addi­tion­al air­craft up to a val­ue of US$750 mil­lion. Avolon‑e has been estab­lished by Avolon to focus on invest­ment in the eVTOL sec­tor. 

Tomo­hi­ro Nishi­ha­ta, Man­ag­ing Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Japan Air­lines, said: “Today’s announce­ment rep­re­sents an impor­tant step towards the social imple­men­ta­tion of Air Taxi at Osa­ka Kan­sai EXPO in 2025. Our part­ner­ship with Avolon, lays out the path­way towards achiev­ing Air Mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion in Japan.

“The intro­duc­tion of VA-X4 will also con­tribute to reduce our envi­ron­men­tal impact and we fun­da­men­tal­ly believe that sus­tain­abil­i­ty will be the engine for future growth across our busi­ness and region. We look for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing close­ly with Avolon and Ver­ti­cal on the roadmap to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for the VA-X4 with the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau.” 

Stephen Fitz­patrick, Ver­ti­cal’s CEO, added: “The VA-X4 will trans­form how we trav­el. We are delight­ed to be work­ing with Avolon and our newest part­ner Japan Air­lines as we bring zero-emis­sions air­craft to the Japan­ese mar­ket. JAL’s expe­ri­ence will strength­en the cer­ti­fi­ca­tion roadmap in Japan demon­strat­ing our glob­al view as we make eVTOLs a real­i­ty.”