Skyports partners with Park24, Aioi Nissay Dowa, and Kanematsu to develop vertiport infrastructure in Japan

Sky­ports and Park24, a Japan­ese park­ing lot and car shar­ing oper­a­tor, have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) to devel­op and inte­grate a ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture net­work in Japan.

The MoU also includes Aioi Nis­say Dowa Insur­ance, which aims to devel­op a Mobil­i­ty as a Ser­vice (MaaS), and Kane­mat­su Cor­po­ra­tion, which has worked with Sky­ports since April 2020 to devel­op an Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) infra­struc­ture in Japan.

They will con­duct fea­si­bil­i­ty assess­ments in the Kan­sai Region, and par­tic­u­lar­ly in Osa­ka, to estab­lish which of Park24’s park­ing lots are suit­able for ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment to serve as nodes for eVTOL pas­sen­ger air­craft and as ded­i­cat­ed charg­ing sites, while explor­ing the busi­ness case for first and last mile car shar­ing ser­vices for AAM oper­a­tors.

Sky­ports head of Asia Pacif­ic Yun-Yuan TAY said: “Sky­ports is proud to con­tribute exper­tise in ver­ti­port design and oper­a­tions to bring AAM to Japan.

“The part­ner­ship will enable us to unlock val­ue for Park24’s cus­tomers, part­ners and users, and we look for­ward to enhanc­ing mobil­i­ty ser­vices with our part­ners, as we work to accel­er­ate the adop­tion of AAM in Japan.”

Park24 senior exec­u­tive cor­po­rate offi­cer Kenichi Sasa­ki added: “We are very pleased to par­tic­i­pate in the ver­ti­port busi­ness of Japan to link peo­ple, mobil­i­ty users and local com­mu­ni­ties.

“We expect that the Ver­ti­port busi­ness will become an indis­pens­able busi­ness for our brand con­cept — Mobil­i­ty Link.”

Aioi Nis­say Dowa Insur­ance senior man­ag­ing exec­u­tive offi­cer Mit­su­ru Yam­aguchi con­tin­ued: “This part­ner­ship is a valu­able first step in build­ing the ground infra­struc­ture for eVTOL.

“We are com­mit­ted to the secu­ri­ty and safe­ty of our eVTOL ver­ti­port cus­tomers and to solve social issues such as future mobil­i­ty ser­vices and a car­bon-neu­tral soci­ety through the devel­op­ment of fly­ing cars”

Kane­mat­su Cor­po­ra­tion chief offi­cer of motor vehi­cles and aero­space divi­sion Ryoichi Kidoko­ro said: “We are hap­py to launch a col­lab­o­ra­tion based on AAM and we will accel­er­ate the ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture of Japan to con­tribute to the air mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion.”

Park24’s part­ner­ship with Sky­ports will enable seam­less inte­gra­tion of AAM into its oper­a­tions, work­ing with reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies and local com­mu­ni­ties in Japan to advance an AAM ecosys­tem that pri­ori­tis­es safe­ty, con­nec­tiv­i­ty, and acces­si­bil­i­ty.

Last week, Sky­ports and Jurong Port, oper­a­tor of Singapore’s mul­ti-pur­pose car­go port, signed a MOU to devel­op ship-to-shore infra­struc­ture for large-scale drone deliv­ery oper­a­tions and expand the country’s bustling mar­itime sec­tor.

In July 2020, Aioi Nis­say Dowa invest­ed in Joby Avi­a­tion with the aim of explor­ing spe­cialised insur­ance prod­ucts and ser­vices while gain­ing knowl­edge about eVTOL air­craft.