Wisk Aero, Japan Airlines Collaborate To Lay Groundwork For Daily Autonomous Flights In Japan

U.S eVTOL Com­pa­ny, Wisk Aero, and Japan Air­lines (JAL), have announced today a col­lab­o­ra­tion to bring Wisk’s autonomous, all-elec­tric air taxi ser­vices to Japan, reports a press release. Addi­tion­al­ly, Wisk and JAL Engi­neer­ing (JALEC), are to work close­ly togeth­er to devel­op plans for the main­te­nance and oper­a­tion of the U.S fly­ing taxis.

A Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing (MoU) has been signed which estab­lish­es a frame­work for not just the two com­pa­nies, but for the Japan­ese Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB), as well as oth­er rel­e­vant Japan­ese Gov­ern­ment agen­cies. This includes care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of reg­u­la­to­ry require­ments, safe­ty mea­sures and how the com­mu­ni­ty can ben­e­fit from Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) via the use of Wisk’s 6th Gen­er­a­tion eVTOL Air­craft.

The MOU estab­lish­es a frame­work for:-

: Research towards launch­ing fleet oper­a­tions for Wisk’s 6th Gen­er­a­tion taxi, includ­ing Type Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion approval in Japan as well as Main­te­nance, Repair and Over­haul require­ments.

: Sup­port­ing dis­cus­sion with the Japan­ese Civ­il Avi­a­tion Bureau (JCAB) and rel­e­vant Gov­ern­ment agen­cies, as appro­pri­ate, on the estab­lish­ment of a Wisk oper­a­tion under a future Air Oper­a­tors Cer­tifi­cate in Japan.

: Devel­op­ment of a path to a demon­stra­tion flight in Japan.

: Intro­duc­tion of autonomous air­craft into the Japan­ese nation­al air­space sys­tem.

Bri­an Yutko, CEO of Wisk, com­ment­ed, “Wisk and Japan Air­lines share a com­mit­ment to safe, acces­si­ble trans­porta­tion and to ensur­ing that our ser­vices pro­vide long-term ben­e­fit to the com­mu­ni­ties that we serve. We look for­ward to work­ing togeth­er to bring autonomous every­day flight to Japan and to fur­ther advanc­ing Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty in the broad­er APAC region.”

Ryo Tamu­ra, CEO of JALEC, “In Japan, the intro­duc­tion of autonomous air trav­el is devel­op­ing and we strong­ly feel that this part­ner­ship with Wisk is the first step towards the devel­op­ment of the next gen­er­a­tion of safe air mobil­i­ty in Japan.”

The release states, “Japan Air­lines and Wisk share a com­mit­ment to safe­ty, sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and respon­si­bil­i­ty. This part­ner­ship rep­re­sents the join­ing of these shared val­ues to devel­op an endur­ing approach to the intro­duc­tion of future autonomous air taxi oper­a­tions that are part of the future inte­grat­ed trans­porta­tion lay­er in Japan.”

Cather­ine Mac­Gowan

Cather­ine Mac­Gowan, Wisk’s APAC Region­al Direc­tor, remarked, “Japan rep­re­sents a large, dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed mar­ket where air taxi ser­vices can pro­vide real, pos­i­tive impact for local com­mu­ni­ties. We look for­ward to fur­ther pur­su­ing the poten­tial intro­duc­tion of our self-fly­ing, all-elec­tric air taxis in Japan, and are encour­aged by the grow­ing inter­est with­in the broad­er APAC region for these types of ser­vices.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://wisk.aero

https://www.jal.co.jp/uk/en/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/jal-engineering-co-ltd-/about/

(Images: Wisk Aero)