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TMAP joins Joby Aviation and SK Telecom to help bring air taxi services to South Korea

South Korea’s largest mobil­i­ty plat­form, TMAP, will join Joby’s part­ner­ship with Korea’s lead­ing telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny, SK Tele­com, to bring emis­sions-free aer­i­al ride-shar­ing ser­vices to the coun­try.

TMAP is a whol­ly-owned sub­sidiary of SK Square, a sep­a­rate pub­licly trad­ed com­pa­ny that forms part of the SK Group. TMAP holds trans­porta­tion and map­ping data gath­ered over the last 20 years, which will inform the part­ners of opti­mal air taxi routes and infra­struc­ture net­works to suit the pref­er­ences of Kore­an con­sumers.

It also joint­ly owns the on-demand ride-hail­ing app UT along with Uber, a Joby part­ner since 2019, to enable mul­ti-mode jour­neys to inte­grate both ground and air trav­el.

Justin Lang, head of part­ner­ships and cor­po­rate strat­e­gy at Joby, said: “TMAP’s deep knowl­edge and under­stand­ing of mobil­i­ty needs across Korea, along with mil­lions of dai­ly users across Korea, makes them a great part­ner to bring our aer­i­al rideshar­ing ser­vice to cus­tomers. 

“South Korea is a remark­able oppor­tu­ni­ty for our air­craft, and work­ing with SKT and TMAP will deliv­er a ser­vice that is clean, qui­et, and afford­able.”

In Feb­ru­ary, Joby and SK Tele­com pre­vi­ous­ly announced an agree­ment to intro­duce aer­i­al rideshar­ing in sup­port of the Kore­an Urban Air Mobil­i­ty Roadmap of the South Kore­an Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, and Trans­port.

Lee Jong Ho, CEO of TMAP Mobil­i­ty, added: “By coop­er­at­ing with Joby, TMAP will become a plat­form oper­a­tor that can offer a trans­porta­tion ser­vice between the ground and the sky.”

While Joby’s aer­i­al rideshar­ing ser­vice will be oper­at­ed direct­ly by the com­pa­ny and offered to pas­sen­gers by the Joby app or Uber app in core US mar­kets, this announce­ment reflects Joby’s strat­e­gy to part­ner with local com­pa­nies to launch its ser­vice in inter­na­tion­al mar­kets.

With a max­i­mum range of 241 km, a top speed of 321 km/h, and low noise to allow it to access urban areas, Joby’s pilot­ed eVTOL air­craft is designed for con­ve­nient, emis­sions-free air trav­el. 

In Novem­ber 2021, Mobius.Energy, MintAir, Sky­works Aero­nau­tics, Lotte Rental and Lotte Cor­po­ra­tion estab­lished a con­sor­tium to help launch eVTOL air­craft ser­vices in the city of Incheon, South Korea.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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