SkyDrive and West Nippon Expressway Company to explore using service areas and parking areas for Advanced Air Mobility

Sky­Drive has announced the sign­ing of a new part­ner­ship agree­ment with West Nip­pon Express­way Com­pa­ny (NEXCO West), where both par­ties will explore the com­mer­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty ser­vices based in express­way park­ing and ser­vice areas.

Under its “MOVE!2030” mid-term man­age­ment plan, West Nip­pon Express­way Com­pa­ny (NEXCO West) is com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing new val­ue and con­tribut­ing to region­al eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment, work­ing to resolve the issues that affect com­mu­ni­ties through active involve­ment in new areas of busi­ness.

Through this part­ner­ship, Sky­Drive and NEXCO West will inves­ti­gate the com­mer­cial fea­si­bil­i­ty of using ser­vice areas and park­ing areas oper­at­ed by NEXCO West as a hub for next gen­er­a­tion air mobil­i­ty ser­vices

1. Dri­ving new val­ue, con­tribut­ing to local economies
   Trans­form­ing the ser­vices and park­ing areas along NEXCO West’s express­ways into depar­ture points for sight­see­ing flights and oth­er advanced air mobil­i­ty options will cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties for added con­sumer val­ue. Longer term, we hope that links between express­way and eVTOL ser­vices hubs can help stim­u­late local economies
2. Improved post-dis­as­ter response
   SkyDrive’s air­craft can help author­i­ties assess post-dis­as­ter dam­age from the air and con­sid­er post-dis­as­ter response options. Improved eVTOL access from along­side NEXCO West’s express­ways can help mit­i­gate the adverse impact of nat­ur­al dis­as­ters

Mov­ing for­ward, Sky­Drive and NEXCO West will look into how and where to best deploy SkyDrive’s air mobil­i­ty ser­vices as we look to meet the public’s expec­ta­tions over the val­ue this next gen­er­a­tion of air­craft can pro­vide.

Togeth­er, Sky­Drive aims to har­ness express­way ser­vice areas and park­ing areas as a base for new val­ue cre­ation, a source of region­al eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus, and a means of pro­vid­ing improved dis­as­ter mit­i­ga­tion response.

Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, CEO of Sky­Drive, said: “Sky­Drive is hon­ored and delight­ed to enter into this part­ner­ship with NEXCO West. In devel­op­ing our air­craft, we are look­ing to lead this “once-in-a-cen­tu­ry” mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion.

“This new part­ner­ship is a mean­ing­ful step for­ward for our busi­ness. Com­bin­ing the exper­tise in man­ag­ing road infra­struc­ture deliv­ered by NEXCO West with the easy access to short-hop air trav­el and sight­see­ing flights deliv­ered by Sky­Drive opens up a new realm of pos­si­bil­i­ties.”

Dur­ing 2025, over a peri­od of around six weeks, Sky­Drive suc­cess­ful­ly show­cased demon­stra­tion flights of the “SKYDRIVE” (Sky­Drive Mod­el SD-05) both at the Expo 2025 Osa­ka and at a sec­ond ver­ti­port with­in the city of Osa­ka. Hav­ing con­duct­ed fur­ther demon­stra­tion flights in Tokyo dur­ing Feb­ru­ary 2026, its is dri­ving towards our next major mile­stone: com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in 2028.

SkyDrive’s ties with NEXCO West began when research into the future poten­tial of air mobil­i­ty led us to focus on the ser­vice and park­ing areas as poten­tial sites for eVTOL ver­ti­ports (take­off and land­ing pads).

With ser­vice areas and park­ing areas acces­si­ble at inter­vals of between 10 and 30 kilo­me­ters, ver­ti­ports with­in these facil­i­ties would allow the next gen­er­a­tion of air mobil­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy to cre­ate added val­ue and con­tribute to the region­al devel­op­ment of the com­mu­ni­ties run­ning along­side the express­way net­work.

NEXCO West decid­ed to part­ner with Sky­Drive as SkyDrive’s goals not only chime with NEXCO West’s mid-term man­age­ment plan, they also align with the phi­los­o­phy of cre­at­ing a lega­cy from the 2025 Expo in Osa­ka, as sup­port­ed by the Kan­sai Eco­nom­ic Fed­er­a­tion (Kankeiren), an umbrel­la orga­ni­za­tion for major cor­po­ra­tions based in the Kan­sai region. NEXCO West is a long­stand­ing and influ­en­tial cor­po­rate mem­ber of the Kankeiren.

Fukuza­wa added: “The ser­vice areas and park­ing areas with­in NEXCO West’s exten­sive net­work of express­ways already serve large num­bers of vis­i­tors. Adding air mobil­i­ty ser­vices to the shop­ping and oth­er facil­i­ties already on offer will add to the appeal of this high­way infra­struc­ture, turn­ing these already busy waysta­tions into a gate­way to the skies.

“SkyDrive’s air mobil­i­ty ser­vices will not only be able to increase val­ue for tourists through sight­see­ing flights, they may also help pro­vide peace of mind to local res­i­dents through a future role in post-dis­as­ter recov­ery. In part­ner­ship with NEXCO West, we are proud to be tak­ing firm steps towards new val­ue cre­ation as we work to bring the next gen­er­a­tion of air mobil­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy to peo­ple in the regions served by NEXCO West’s express­way net­work.

NEXCO West Pres­i­dent and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Direc­tor Yoshi­haru Shiba­mu­ra, said: “Sky­Drive is Japan’s lead­ing pio­neer in bring­ing ‘fly­ing cars’ to life, already work­ing in close part­ner­ship with numer­ous local gov­ern­ments and infra­struc­ture com­pa­nies. We are deeply hon­ored to have entered into an agree­ment to col­lab­o­rate and move for­ward with these ini­tia­tives togeth­er.

“The future avail­abil­i­ty of sight­see­ing flights from our ser­vice and park­ing areas would bring new vital­i­ty and eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits to these facil­i­ties, fur­ther ele­vat­ing them from rest facil­i­ties to des­ti­na­tions in their own right. Bas­ing SkyDrive’s air­craft along­side our high­ways will also open up pos­si­bil­i­ties for assess­ing post-dis­as­ter dam­age and mea­sures for recon­struc­tion, help­ing to mit­i­gate the adverse effects of Japan’s fre­quent earth­quakes and oth­er nat­ur­al dis­as­ters.

He added: “Through this part­ner­ship with Sky­Drive, we look for­ward to pool­ing our resources and exam­in­ing in detail the com­mer­cial and dis­as­ter mit­i­ga­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties of this remark­able new tech­nol­o­gy, ensur­ing that we work close­ly togeth­er to explore spe­cif­ic use cas­es and poten­tial ser­vice areas.”