U.S: SkyDrive, SAI Flight “Unveil Plans for Commercial Electric Air Taxi Routes in South Carolina, Confirm Pre-Order of 10 eVTOL Aircraft”

Japan-based eVTOL com­pa­ny, Sky­Drive and SAI Flight, a lead­ing pri­vate jet char­ter com­pa­ny from South Car­oli­na, U.S, along­side Greenville Down­town Air­port, the state’s busiest gen­er­al avi­a­tion hub, have signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MOU) to joint­ly devel­op inno­v­a­tive busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, reports a press release. 

Util­is­ing SkyDrive’s eVTOL air­craft expe­ri­ence, this col­lab­o­ra­tion is to focus on advanc­ing air-car­go, air-taxi and emer­gency ser­vice use cas­es, “paving the way for a new era of effi­cient and ver­sa­tile intra-com­mu­ni­ty air trav­el,” states the release. The Japan­ese com­pa­ny has been active­ly expand­ing into the Amer­i­can mar­ket after estab­lish­ing a base in ear­ly 2023.

Under the agree­ment, the three part­ners will col­lab­o­rate “to devel­op real-life use cas­es for the eVTOL, orig­i­nat­ing from Greenville Down­town Air­port with sup­port from both the City’s Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment and Area Devel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tions. They are work­ing close­ly with local and state gov­ern­ments, as well as busi­ness­es, to design prac­ti­cal routes such as to the city cen­tre and the Greenville–Spartanburg Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, which will enhance trav­el options for com­mu­ni­ty res­i­dents and vis­i­tors,” con­tin­ues the release. This will posi­tion Greenville as a leader among state air­ports in the inte­gra­tion of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) solu­tions.

Mean­while, SAI Flight has made a com­mit­ment to the future of air mobil­i­ty by plac­ing a pre-order for 10 Sky­Drive eVTOL aircraft.With its Part 135 Air Car­ri­er Cer­tifi­cate, SAI is unique­ly posi­tioned to inte­grate elec­tric air taxi ser­vices into its exist­ing oper­a­tions, offer­ing on-demand, flex­i­ble air mobil­i­ty solu­tions. 

SAI Flight Ser­vices (Cred­it: SAI)

With a strong pres­ence in South Car­oli­na, “the com­pa­ny has col­lab­o­rat­ed close­ly with the state gov­ern­ment, major air­ports and key stake­hold­ers, includ­ing air­line com­pa­nies, to forge strate­gic part­ner­ships for the com­mer­cial adop­tion of its eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy,” adds the release. “Build­ing on these efforts, a new alliance with its two part­ners marks a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward, as they work togeth­er on iden­ti­fy­ing, devel­op­ing, and com­mer­cial­is­ing prac­ti­cal air routes with­in the Greenville com­mu­ni­ty, paving the way for the future of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty in the region.”

Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, CEO of Sky­Drive, com­ment­ed, “This part­ner­ship presents a valu­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to accel­er­ate our expan­sion and bring AAM solu­tions to the region. Mov­ing for­ward, we will con­tin­ue to deep­en our coop­er­a­tion with local part­ners, while mak­ing strate­gic prepa­ra­tions to ful­ly realise our inno­v­a­tive busi­ness mod­el.” 

Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa

Hunter Cuth­bert­son III, Pres­i­dent of SAI Flight, remarked, “We view this col­lab­o­ra­tion as a vital step toward enhanc­ing our own busi­ness mod­el and deliv­er­ing greater val­ue to cus­tomers. We are posi­tioned to offer cut­ting-edge, sus­tain­able air trav­el solu­tions that com­ple­ment our exist­ing ser­vices.”

He con­tin­ued, “This part­ner­ship not only allows us to expand our range of on-demand trans­porta­tion options, but also aligns with our com­mit­ment to advanc­ing sus­tain­able prac­tices in the avi­a­tion sec­tor.”

SAI Flight Ser­vices will lead as the pri­ma­ry ser­vice provider, over­see­ing oper­a­tions and main­te­nance, “while ensur­ing a seam­less and reli­able ser­vice for all eVTOL oper­a­tions, solid­i­fy­ing its posi­tion as a key play­er in the future of AAM,” con­cludes the release.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://en.skydrive2020.com/

https://www.saiflight.com

https://www.greenvilledowntownairport.com

(Top image cred­it: Sky­Drive)

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