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Skyports Infrastructure and ConOps partners to continue to help shape Japan’s AAM future

Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture has announced its involve­ment in the next phase of research for a Con­cept of Oper­a­tions (ConOps) for advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) for the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB).

In an announce­ment made today (Thurs­day), the com­pa­ny will con­tin­ue to work along­side its ConOps part­ners Kane­mat­su Cor­po­ra­tion, Japan Air­lines and Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, to define Japan’s frame­work for the devel­op­ment and imple­men­ta­tion of advanced air mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions in the coun­try.

Atsushi Oka­da, Japan Coun­try Lead at Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture, said: “The PPC ConOps lays the ground­work for Japan’s advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try. The con­ver­gence of pub­lic and pri­vate stake­hold­ers work­ing towards the goal of enabling Japan’s future AAM indus­try is an indi­ca­tor of two things: first, that col­lab­o­ra­tion between indus­try and gov­ern­ment is crit­i­cal to our mis­sion; and sec­ond, that the time has come for exe­cu­tion.

“We’re proud to con­tribute our deep exper­tise of ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture and tech­nol­o­gy to sup­port the devel­op­ment of AAM in Japan.”

The ConOps is designed as a crit­i­cal ref­er­ence point for com­pa­nies that are con­sid­er­ing enter­ing the Japan­ese AAM mar­ket. The first iter­a­tion, pub­lished in March this year, estab­lished the foun­da­tions for ini­tial com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in Japan and objec­tives for scal­ing eVTOL ser­vices across the coun­try.

This next phase of the project will devel­op a sec­ond iter­a­tion of the ConOps to reflect changes in glob­al AAM devel­op­ment and reg­u­la­tion, fur­ther explore use cas­es, and add new input from stake­hold­ers.

David Rot­tblatt, vice pres­i­dent of sales and gov­ern­ment affairs at Eve Air Mobil­i­ty, said: “Eve has sup­port­ed this effort since the begin­ning and we are pleased to pro­vide our ongo­ing sup­port to help enable the future of the Japan­ese AAM indus­try, in par­tic­u­lar the traf­fic man­age­ment of eVTOLs. This effort will play an incred­i­bly impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment and safe inte­gra­tion of eVTOL air­craft in Japan.”

Since the ConOps project launched in 2021, Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture has pro­vid­ed invalu­able insight into the devel­op­ment and oper­a­tion of ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture for Japan’s future eVTOL trans­port net­works.

The sec­ond iter­a­tion, planned for pub­li­ca­tion in 2024, will embed new learn­ings from its con­trib­u­tors, lever­ag­ing their dis­tinct exper­tise for a Japan­ese con­text.

Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture will apply learn­ings from ongo­ing ver­ti­port test­ing cam­paigns at Sky­ports Lon­don Heli­port and its Euro­pean test­bed facil­i­ty at the Groupe ADP-owned Pon­toise-Cormeilles Air­field in Paris, which the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau vis­it­ed ear­li­er this year.

The research, find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions set out in the doc­u­ment play a piv­otal role in the exe­cu­tion and imple­men­ta­tion of eVTOL ser­vices. The new iter­a­tion will fur­ther out­line key work­streams and time­lines for indus­try devel­op­ment, and high­light the immi­nent need for crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture, reg­u­la­tion and process devel­op­ment to begin.

The ConOps is an out­put of the Pub­lic-Pri­vate Com­mit­tee for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (PPC), an indus­try devel­op­ment board formed joint­ly by Japan’s Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Trade and Indus­try (METI) and Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture, Trans­port and Tourism (MLIT) in 2018.

It aims to bring togeth­er pub­lic and pri­vate rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the AAM indus­try to devel­op the next gen­er­a­tion of air mobil­i­ty in Japan.

You can read the full ConOps here.

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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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