Vertical Aerospace signs MoU with Marubeni Corporation to introduce its VA-X4 eVTOL aircraft in Japan

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space will work with Japan­ese firm Marubeni Cor­po­ra­tion to explore sus­tain­able and emis­sions-free trav­el solu­tions in the coun­try’s mar­ket, focus­ing on Vertical’s flag­ship eVTOL air­craft, the VA-X4. The agree­ment also sees Marubeni agree a con­di­tion­al pre-order option of up to 200 air­craft.

This impor­tant part­ner­ship builds on exist­ing com­mer­cial part­ner­ships between Ver­ti­cal and Amer­i­can Air­lines, Vir­gin Atlantic, Avolon, Ibero­jet and Bris­tow, which with Marubeni have already col­lec­tive­ly agreed con­di­tion­al pre-orders for 1,350 air­craft in total with a val­ue of approx­i­mate­ly $5.4 bil­lion.

Ver­ti­cal and Marubeni will now begin joint­ly eval­u­at­ing the require­ments for eVTOL air­craft oper­a­tions in Japan as well as oth­er com­mer­cial con­sid­er­a­tions such as route and net­work plan­ning, infra­struc­ture require­ments and capac­i­ty, plus engag­ing oth­er inter­est­ed par­ties who can play a role in launch­ing advanced air mobil­i­ty in Japan.

Stephen Fitz­patrick, Founder and CEO of Ver­ti­cal said: “Marubeni is one of the most respect­ed com­pa­nies in Japan, and we are proud to be part­ner­ing with them as we look at ways to bring our VA-X4 to the Japan­ese mar­ket. Marubeni’s pre-order option for up to 200 air­craft pro­vides us with a poten­tial direct route to mar­ket and builds on our pur­chase agree­ments with Amer­i­can Air­lines, Vir­gin Atlantic, Avolon, Ibero­jet and Bris­tow.

“This is the most excit­ing time in avi­a­tion for almost a cen­tu­ry; elec­tri­fi­ca­tion will trans­form fly­ing in the 21st cen­tu­ry in the same way the jet engine did 70 years ago and with Marubeni we are con­fi­dent we have a great part­ner who can be a part of this trans­for­ma­tion.”

By work­ing with such an estab­lished and respect­ed Japan­ese organ­i­sa­tion, Ver­ti­cal expects to accel­er­ate its abil­i­ty to enter the Japan­ese mar­ket and offer Japan­ese con­sumers a safer, faster, cheap­er and green­er alter­na­tive to cur­rent short haul options in the coun­try.

With its tech­no­log­i­cal and reg­u­la­to­ry advan­tages, such as its capac­i­ty to oper­ate high fre­quen­cy eVTOL traf­fic in a safe envi­ron­ment, Japan has great poten­tial when it comes to the com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of the AAM mar­ket.

Marubeni believes that eVTOLs have a num­ber of use cas­es in Japan, such as inter-city, intra-city, air­port shut­tle and life sup­port oper­a­tions, that will ben­e­fit both cus­tomers and com­mu­ni­ties. Marubeni is expect­ing eVTOL oper­a­tions to com­mence in 2025 and will uti­lize its exist­ing avi­a­tion capa­bil­i­ties to max­i­mize the qual­i­ty of per­son­al trans­porta­tion.

Toru Okaza­ki, Senior Oper­at­ing Offi­cer, Aero­space & Ship Div at Marubeni added: “We’re so excit­ed to announce this great part­ner­ship with Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, who is now lead­ing the Advanced Aer­i­al Mobil­i­ty mar­ket. Through this strong part­ner­ship with Ver­ti­cal, we are con­fi­dent that we will suc­cess­ful­ly devel­op the AAM mar­ket in Japan.

“By seek­ing to pop­u­larise eVTOL tech­nol­o­gy, we will not only be enrich­ing people’s lives but mak­ing mean­ing­ful inroads into the reduc­tion of green­house gas­es and our path to net-zero.”

Ver­ti­cal is now work­ing with part­ners in key loca­tions around the world to estab­lish AAM oper­a­tions in mar­kets where there is expect­ed high demand for eVTOL oper­a­tions.

In the USA, Amer­i­can Air­lines plans to work with Ver­ti­cal on pas­sen­ger oper­a­tions and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment while in the UK, Vir­gin Atlantic and Ver­ti­cal plan to work togeth­er to explore the joint ven­ture launch of a Vir­gin Atlantic brand­ed short haul eVTOL net­work, includ­ing oper­a­tions and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment.

The VA-X4, Vertical’s flag­ship air­craft, is expect­ed to be cer­ti­fied to the same stan­dards as com­mer­cial air­lin­ers and is expect­ed to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly safer and qui­eter than a heli­copter.

By com­bin­ing its world-class team with a delib­er­ate­ly built ecosys­tem of top-tier part­ners, such as Microsoft, Amer­i­can Air­lines, Avolon, Hon­ey­well, Rolls-Royce, and more, Ver­ti­cal has assem­bled a broad mix of peo­ple and world class organ­i­sa­tions with both com­mer­cial track records as well as expe­ri­ence test­ing, build­ing and cer­ti­fy­ing some of the world’s most advanced air­craft.