Tohoku Air Service Signs LOI with SkyDrive for Purchase of eVTOL Aircraft to Contribute to Safe and Reliable Urban Air Mobility in Japan

Sky­Drive has signed a Let­ter of Intent (LOI) with Tohoku Air Ser­vice (TAS) to deliv­er one Sky­Drive SD-05 eVTOL air­craft in 2028.

In a press release issued today (Tues­day), Tohoku Air Ser­vice, which is a heli­copter oper­a­tor owned by Tohoku Elec­tric Pow­er Com­pa­ny, hopes to lever­age the numer­ous advan­tages offered by eVTOL air­craft includ­ing qui­et oper­a­tion, low­er pur­chase and main­te­nance costs.

Tohoku Air Ser­vice has decid­ed to enter into this agree­ment in recog­ni­tion of these wide-rang­ing poten­tial con­tri­bu­tions to improve qual­i­ty of life through safe­ty, reli­a­bil­i­ty and com­fort.

This LOI marks SkyDrive’s first agree­ment for the pur­chase of an air­craft by a Japan-based heli­copter oper­a­tor.

Shigeyu­ki Ouchi, Tohoku Air Ser­vice Pres­i­dent, said: “Sign­ing of this Let­ter of Intent with Sky­Drive as a step towards the pur­chase of one SKYDRIVE air­craft lets us advance our con­crete inves­ti­ga­tions into the real world oper­a­tion of this next-gen­er­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy. We will con­duct a detailed con­fir­ma­tion of the func­tion­al­i­ty, safe­ty, and infra­struc­ture require­ments, to assess the oper­a­tional fea­si­bil­i­ty of eVTOL ser­vices from mul­ti­ple per­spec­tives.

“Work­ing togeth­er with Sky­Drive, the only com­pa­ny in Japan devel­op­ing an eVTOL, allows us to feed the oper­a­tional knowl­edge we have built through our heli­copter oper­a­tions into the devel­op­ment of SkyDrive’s air­craft. We also plan to devel­op a mul­ti-use oper­at­ing mod­el that can serve the peo­ple of the Tohoku Region and Niiga­ta Pre­fec­ture in var­i­ous ways includ­ing the pro­vi­sion of tourism ser­vices, region­al trans­port routes, med­ical ser­vices and post-dis­as­ter relief.”

Tohoku Air Ser­vice was estab­lished as a heli­copter oper­a­tor in 1991 as a mem­ber of the Tohoku Elec­tric Pow­er Com­pa­ny group of com­pa­nies.

At its found­ing, the com­pa­ny was able to lever­age the more than 38 years of pow­er line inspec­tion expe­ri­ence gath­ered by its par­ent com­pa­ny, and since then, for more than 30 fur­ther years, TAS has helped sup­port the main­te­nance and devel­op­ment of elec­tric­i­ty infra­struc­ture, prin­ci­pal­ly through the oper­a­tion of the heli­copters used for air­borne pow­er line inspec­tions and the trans­porta­tion of car­go to moun­tain­ous and oth­er loca­tions dif­fi­cult to reach by road and rail. With a firm empha­sis on safe­ty, the work of TAS sup­ports the devel­op­ment of the entire Tohoku region.

Through the agree­ment with Sky­Drive, TAS will now be able to apply the knowl­edge it has accu­mu­lat­ed through long years of expe­ri­ence in heli­copter oper­a­tion to the oper­a­tion of eVTOL, with the aim of build­ing sus­tain­able trans­port sys­tems to serve region­al cities and con­tribut­ing to the growth of region­al economies through the effec­tive use of this next-gen­er­a­tion mobil­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy.

TAS will thor­ough­ly exam­ine the func­tion­al­i­ty, safe­ty, infra­struc­ture require­ments, and oper­a­tional fea­si­bil­i­ty of eVTOL ser­vices with the goal of work­ing togeth­er with Sky­Drive to estab­lish a mul­ti-use oper­a­tional mod­el that can respond flex­i­bly to the diverse needs of the mar­ket.

Sky­Drive is devel­op­ing eVTOL air­craft with the mis­sion of “lead­ing a once-in-a-cen­tu­ry mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion”. Our goal is to make sim­ple and con­ve­nient air trav­el a reg­u­lar part of city life.

Dur­ing 2025, over a peri­od of around six weeks, Sky­Drive suc­cess­ful­ly show­cased demon­stra­tion flights of 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, we are work­ing towards our next major mile­stone: com­mer­cial oper­a­tions in 2028.

Sky­Drive CEO Tomo­hi­ro Fukuza­wa, said: “I am tru­ly delight­ed that Tohoku Air Ser­vice has been able to sign this Let­ter of Intent with Sky­Drive as a step toward the future pur­chase of one of our air­craft. Sky­Drive, guid­ed by our mis­sion of lead­ing this once-in-a-cen­tu­ry mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion, is focused on the devel­op­ment and entry into ser­vice of a viable eVTOL air­craft.

“Through demon­stra­tion flights at the Osa­ka Expo, Osakako Port and Tokyo Bay, we have steadi­ly val­i­dat­ed the tech­ni­cal capa­bil­i­ties and oper­a­tional pos­si­bil­i­ties of our air­craft, and we are now mov­ing into an impor­tant phase that will lead through to the start of ser­vice in 2028.

He added: “This agree­ment with Tohoku Air Ser­vice, a com­pa­ny with more than three decades of expe­ri­ence in pro­vid­ing air trans­port ser­vices to cus­tomers in Tohoku, is a sig­nif­i­cant step for Sky­Drive. The LOI will deliv­er a major con­tri­bu­tion toward estab­lish­ing and main­tain­ing a sus­tain­able trans­port ecosys­tem based on mul­ti­func­tion­al eVTOL oper­a­tion in Tohoku, with these oper­a­tions cov­er­ing var­i­ous fields includ­ing sight­see­ing flights, region­al trans­porta­tion, and post-dis­as­ter relief ser­vices.

“Togeth­er, we will con­tin­ue work­ing to deliv­er new val­ue to region­al com­mu­ni­ties through air mobil­i­ty, cre­at­ing new oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple and indus­try that can help the region fur­ther expand its poten­tial.”