SkyDrive Expands Strategic Network in USA with SAI Flight and Agrees Eight-Strong eVTOL Aircraft Order with Aeroauto

Sky­Drive has signed a Let­ter of Intent (LOI) for eight of its SD-05 air­craft with Aeroau­to, a Flori­da-based Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) inte­gra­tion part­ner and infra­struc­ture provider. The agree­ment marks a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone in SkyDrive’s US expan­sion, solid­i­fy­ing its com­mit­ment to the Sun­shine State.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Sky­Drive has also come to an agree­ment with SAI Flight to extend their exist­ing part­ner­ship beyond South Car­oli­na to Flori­da, where SAI cur­rent­ly boasts their sec­ond largest oper­a­tional base.

With these two new agree­ments, signed dur­ing this week’s VERTICON in Atlanta, Geor­gia, Sky­Drive has cre­at­ed a part­ner­ship clus­ter which, as atten­tion to Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty in Flori­da grows, will ensure a smooth entry into ser­vice in 2028. 

Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, Founder and CEO, Sky­Drive, said: “We are thrilled to wel­come Aeroau­to as a pow­er­ful part­ner in Flori­da, fol­low­ing our ini­tial estab­lish­ment in South Car­oli­na. At Sky­Drive, we are focused on demon­strat­ing a tan­gi­ble busi­ness foun­da­tion in the U.S., backed by an active sup­ply chain and a func­tion­al sales net­work.

“Build­ing on our suc­cess at the 2025 World Expo in Osa­ka and sub­se­quent demon­stra­tions in Tokyo, we
are com­mit­ted to dri­ving mar­ket expan­sion across the U.S. South­east from 2028 onward along­side our Amer­i­can part­ners.”

By inte­grat­ing SkyDrive’s proven exper­tise in eVTOL air­craft devel­op­ment with SAI’s air oper­a­tions and Aeroauto’s estab­lished sales net­work, Sky­Drive is build­ing a com­pre­hen­sive busi­ness foun­da­tion to sup­port its U.S. mar­ket expan­sion.

The com­ple­men­tary busi­ness mod­els shared between Sky­Drive, Aeroau­to, and SAI rep­re­sent a piv­otal shift in the U.S. Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty land­scape, cat­alyz­ing a new wave of col­lab­o­ra­tion and oper­a­tional readi­ness across the South­east­ern cor­ri­dor.

By com­bin­ing the oper­a­tional ecosys­tem estab­lished in South Car­oli­na with Aeroauto’s reach in Florida’s mas­sive tourism and busi­ness mar­kets, Sky­Drive is cre­at­ing a seam­less region­al net­work. This col­lab­o­ra­tion will allow Sky­Drive to extend its col­lab­o­ra­tive frame­work with local gov­ern­ments and air­ports into Flori­da, lead­ing the devel­op­ment of next-gen­er­a­tion mobil­i­ty infra­struc­ture across the entire region.

Aeroau­to is a Flori­da-based Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) com­pa­ny focused on accel­er­at­ing the com­mer­cial adop­tion of eVTOL air­craft. The com­pa­ny oper­ates the world’s first ded­i­cat­ed eVTOL air­craft show­room and sales plat­form, con­nect­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers, oper­a­tors, infra­struc­ture part­ners, and cus­tomers with­in a uni­fied ecosys­tem.

In addi­tion to air­craft sales and dis­tri­b­u­tion, Aeroau­to sup­ports the devel­op­ment of ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture, charg­ing sys­tems, main­te­nance capa­bil­i­ties, pilot train­ing path­ways, and oper­a­tional part­ner­ships need­ed to enable safe and scal­able AAM net­works.

Under the agree­ment with Sky­Drive, Aeroau­to plans to deploy the eight air­craft sequen­tial­ly, with four units sched­uled for deliv­ery in 2028 and the remain­ing four in 2029. Work­ing along­side Aeroau­to, Sky­Drive will accel­er­ate the social accep­tance and prac­ti­cal adop­tion of eVTOLs in the rapid­ly grow­ing South­east mar­ket

Sean Bor­man, Founder & CEO, Aeroau­to, said: “Flori­da rep­re­sents one of the most com­pelling launch mar­kets for Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty any­where in the world. Our part­ner­ship with Sky­Drive brings togeth­er a pow­er­ful com­bi­na­tion of air­craft inno­va­tion, oper­a­tional exper­tise, and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment.

“Through Aeroauto’s sales plat­form, ver­ti­port devel­op­ment ini­tia­tives, and region­al part­ner­ships, we are work­ing to build the com­mer­cial gate­way for eVTOL oper­a­tions across Flori­da and the broad­er South­east Unit­ed States. We are proud to col­lab­o­rate with Sky­Drive and SAI Flight Ser­vices to help bring this new form of trans­porta­tion into every­day use.”

Found­ed in 2013 by third-gen­er­a­tion avi­a­tion expert Ralph “Hunter” Cuth­bert­son III, SAI Flight is a leader in region­al air­craft char­ter man­age­ment based at Greenville Spar­tan­burg Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (GSP).

Com­mit­ted to a ‘back-to-basics’ phi­los­o­phy, SAI pro­vides a full suite of ser­vices, includ­ing air­craft main­te­nance, refur­bish­ing, inter­na­tion­al fer­ry flights, and spe­cial­ized avi­a­tion con­sult­ing. Known for its reli­a­bil­i­ty and integri­ty, SAI Flight con­tin­ues to deliv­er unpar­al­leled ser­vice and expert solu­tions
to part­ners across the avi­a­tion indus­try.

Hunter Cuth­bert­son III, Pres­i­dent of SAI Flight, added: “SAI Flight Ser­vices has been grow­ing our oper­a­tions in Flori­da over the past years. Giv­en our col­lab­o­ra­tion with Sky­Drive and Flori­da’s focus on lead­ing the US in incor­po­rat­ing AAM oper­a­tions, we’re hap­py to be part of this part­ner­ship clus­ter. As AAM becomes a real­i­ty in the com­ing years, we’re thrilled to be able to offer our clien­tele new ser­vices. ”

Dri­ven by the mis­sion to ‘lead the once-in-a-cen­tu­ry mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion’, Sky­Drive is devel­op­ing eVTOL air­craft to make the skies a part of every­day trans­porta­tion. The com­pa­ny has iden­ti­fied the U.S. Southeast—a major hub for the aero­space indus­try— as a key strate­gic region for busi­ness devel­op­ment.