Joby Applies for Aircraft Certification in Japan

Joby Avi­a­tion today con­firmed it has for­mal­ly applied for its air­craft design to be cer­ti­fied for use in Japan as Japan­ese and US reg­u­la­to­ry author­i­ties con­firmed ear­li­er today that they have reached an agree­ment to deliv­er a stream­lined approval process for US appli­cants who wish to val­i­date their eVTOL air­craft designs in Japan.

Joby’s appli­ca­tion to the Japan Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) for the val­i­da­tion of a Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is believed to be the first of its kind and is a nec­es­sary step to launch­ing aer­i­al rideshar­ing ser­vices in Japan, where Joby plans to use its fiveseat, pilot­ed eVTOL air­craft.

Joby Avi­a­tion founder and CEO JoeBen Bevirt said: “We are excit­ed about the poten­tial for elec­tric aer­i­al rideshar­ing to offer a new form of clean and afford­able urban and region­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty across Japan.

“With 92% of res­i­dents liv­ing in urban areas, we have a spec­tac­u­lar oppor­tu­ni­ty to save peo­ple time in con­gest­ed cities like Tokyo, Yoko­hama, and Osa­ka while also reduc­ing their impact on the envi­ron­ment.

“We strong­ly believe that a col­lab­o­ra­tive approach to reg­u­la­tion helps to fos­ter greater safe­ty and by work­ing hand-in-hand on cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, Japan and the US are ensur­ing that both coun­tries con­tin­ue to play a lead­ing role in the adop­tion of cli­mate-friend­ly trans­porta­tion.”

Joby has long-stand­ing ties with Japan, hav­ing wel­comed Toy­ota as a strate­gic part­ner in 2018. As well as lend­ing their exper­tise on man­u­fac­tur­ing process devel­op­ment and high-vol­ume pro­duc­tion, Toy­ota is also Joby’s largest out­side investor, with near­ly $400m invest­ed to date.

Ear­li­er this year, Joby also entered into a part­ner­ship with ANA Hold­ings, Japan’s largest air­line, to bring aer­i­al rideshar­ing ser­vices to the Japan­ese mar­ket.

Joby Avi­a­tion teams up with ANA Hold­ings to help estab­lish new eVTOL ride-shar­ing ser­vice in Japan

Joby is a mem­ber of Japan’s Pub­lic-Pri­vate Con­fer­ence for the Future Air Mobil­i­ty Rev­o­lu­tion, estab­lished by the Min­istry of Econ­o­my, Trade and Indus­try to accel­er­ate the adop­tion of aer­i­al rideshar­ing in the coun­try.

Type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion is a mul­ti-year process which sees a com­pa­ny under­take rig­or­ous test­ing and doc­u­men­ta­tion across each air­craft sys­tem to prove the air­craft meets safe­ty stan­dards and is ready for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.

Sim­i­lar type cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es are under­tak­en for all air­craft, big and small – an approach that has helped shape air trav­el into one of the safest forms of trans­porta­tion avail­able today.