New partnerships Joby ANA, SK Telecom to present air taxis in Japan and South Korea

This week, Joby Aviation and ANA HOLDINGS, the parent company of All Nippon Airways (ANA), announced a joint effort to establish flight services in Japan. The collaboration includes infrastructure development, air traffic management, pilot training and compliance with regulatory requirements to start work with the Electric Vehicle Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) Joby. Toyota Motor Corporation will join forces to study integration with land transport.

ANA, Japan’s largest airline, has been operating for 70 years and will bring significant operational experience to this partnership. Cody Shibata, Representative Director and Executive Vice President of ANA HD, commented on the possibility in the ad: “Our customers are very appreciative of efficiency, so the opportunity to give them the opportunity to travel quickly and steadily from the international airport to the city center is very attractive.”

Joby’s all-electric eVTOL will provide low-noise, low-noise air taxi services for trips up to 150 miles. The top speed of the vehicle is 200 miles per hour, which means that the 31-mile journey from Osaka Station to Kansai International Airport, which will take an hour by car, can be completed in less than 15 minutes at Joby’s eVTOL.

Japan offers an ideal market for urban air mobility (UAM) operations, explained Joby CEO JobBen Bewirt. “92% of the population [lives] in urban areas and Tokyo [is registered] as one of the 20 busiest cities in the world. We look forward to working closely with ANA to implement our air travel sharing service in Japan. ”

Joby announced the start FAA compliance testing only last week, when the company entered the implementation phase of its aircraft type certification program. An authorized FAA engineering representative documented the first series of tests completed in California. According to Joby, the testing serves to “confirm the strength of the composite coupon material that represents the air structure of Joby’s aircraft. The obtained compliance data will be the basis for future tests of structural components of the aircraft, if Joby will undergo the type certification process.

In addition to the partnership with ANA announced this week, Joby also recently announced a new partnership with SK Telecom to introduce Joby eVTOL’s operations to the South Korean market. South Korea has a large urban population, similar to the market in Japan; about 81% of South Korea’s population lives in urban areas and cities. “The parties will work together on all aspects of establishing this service in South Korea,” said a spokesman for Joby. International Aviation in an email statement.

The representative also shared: “Meanwhile, we welcome the government’s efforts to support the development of this revolutionary new transportation option through the K-UAM Grand Challenge, founded by MOLIT, and note that the FAA and South Korea have a bilateral Aviation Security Agreement (BASA) establishing an effective way to confirm the certification of Joby FAA aircraft.

SK Telecom (SKT) will contribute its T Map mobility platform to air travel operations initiated by the new partnership. SKT’s T Map platform is the largest in Korea and was first created in a joint venture called UT between SKT and Uber in 2021, which also used Uber’s travel-sharing technology. The purpose of the agreement between Joby and SKT, according to a representative of Joby, is “to provide customers with multimodal travel, seamlessly integrating both land and air transport.”

SKT CEO Ryu Yong Sang is looking forward to it accelerating UAM in South Korea in partnership with Joby Aviation. “Cooperation with the world’s leading companies is essential to ensure leadership in future areas, which we are confident will be driven by the growth of UAM, autonomous control and robots,” Young-Sang said in a statement.