Japan: “Joby, ANA Holdings Kick-Start Next Phase of Air Taxi Development with Flight Demonstration at Osaka Expo”

Joby Avi­a­tion and Japan­ese part­ner, ANA Hold­ings, announced this week a suc­cess­ful pub­lic flight demon­stra­tion of Joby’s air taxi at the Osa­ka Expo 2025, reports a press release. The U.S eVTOL com­pa­ny has tak­en over flight demon­stra­tions from Sky­Drive.

The demo includ­ed ver­ti­cal take­off, full tran­si­tion to wing­borne flight and ver­ti­cal land­ing. Dur­ing the course of 13 days, Joby aims to con­duct over 20 such flights.

JoeBen Bevirt, CEO and Founder of Joby, enthused, “With these flights, we’re now posi­tioned to begin the impor­tant work of engag­ing com­mu­ni­ties, col­lab­o­rat­ing with reg­u­la­tors and bring­ing on more part­ners to make our dream a real­i­ty.”

He con­tin­ued, “Japan has led the world in trans­form­ing ground trans­porta­tion with its world-class auto­mo­tive indus­try and icon­ic bul­let trains. Now, Japan is poised to lead the world again, this time in the air.”

Joby’s air­craft, fly­ing the ANA liv­ery, marks a key step in gain­ing pub­lic accep­tance of air taxis, while pro­vid­ing valu­able data on air­space inte­gra­tion, which is to be used in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) for devel­op­ment of reg­u­la­to­ry path­ways for AAM in the region.

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Koji Shi­ba­ta, Pres­i­dent and CEO of ANA Hold­ings, remarked, “With the sup­port of nation­al and local gov­ern­ment offi­cials, as well as pri­vate-sec­tor part­ners help­ing us build this future togeth­er, we intend to cre­ate the wings for a new era of air mobil­i­ty.”

The release explains, “The two par­ties are pro­gress­ing toward devel­op­ment of a nation­al air taxi ecosys­tem in Japan, with plans for a phased roll­out begin­ning in Tokyo. This devel­op­ment will include a net­work of ver­ti­ports, pilot train­ing pro­grams and air­craft main­te­nance sup­port. The com­pa­nies are active­ly engaged with part­ners across real estate, man­u­fac­tur­ing and local gov­ern­ments. These flight demon­stra­tions advance those efforts and lay the ground­work for the next phase of deploy­ment.” 

Joby has strong con­nec­tions to Japan, with Toy­ota being a key investor. The eVTOL com­pa­ny con­duct­ed a flight at Mount Fuji in 2024.

For more infor­ma­tion

www.jobyaviation.com

https://www.ana.co.jp/group/en

(Images: Joby Avi­a­tion)

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