Tokyo When the world exhibition begins in Osaka in four years’ time, several start-ups want to usher in the air taxi business – including the German company Volocopter. “The aim is to offer the first commercial routes with air taxis for the Expo,” says Fabien Nestmann, Head of Public Affairs at the Bruchsal-based company.
The German company’s involvement in Japan is no coincidence, because there is great potential there. “According to our observation, Japan positions itself in the ranks of the first countries in which the service could start,” says Nestmann. As early as 2016, the Ministry of Economic Affairs presented a roadmap for how Japan could conquer the new markets.
In a study published in May, the analysts of the US bank Morgan Stanley even trust urban mobility to overtake the car market in the long term. In the eyes of the Japanese, it is all the more important to develop flight services in their own country at an early stage. That is why industry and the ministry have been working intensively on new rules for three years.
The result: Japan could already allow level 4 flights in the coming year, that is: autonomous flights out of sight of a pilot on the ground. This would finally give Japan the go-ahead for commercial drone and air taxi services. And the country already wants to establish a broad ecosystem, ranging from materials and platforms for drone services to financial services.
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Mitsutoshi Nobuta, project manager at the Japanese airline All Nippon Airways (ANA) says: “Japan is one of the leading countries in regulating the drone business.” to implement them.
Japan as an ideal place for delivery drones
Japan has a head start in micro-aircraft and has been spraying fields all over the world with unmanned mini-helicopters from Yamaha for decades. But there are hardly any drone providers in Japan, according to Nobuta, and the domestic air taxi start-up SkyDrive is not really popular either.
It is possible, as is so often the case with technological innovations. Whether chips, solar cells, flat screen televisions or cell phones – Japan was the pioneer in important areas and still lost the markets.
Foreign and especially German start-ups are now benefiting from this. For example, ANA wants to offer commercial drone transports in rural areas with the German start-up Wingcopter from 2022. Toyota has decided to invest in the American technology leader Joby Aviation instead of the Japanese SkyDrive. Another airline, Japan Airlines (JAL), has a stake in Volocopter.
“Japan is trying to establish a new industry,” says Volocopter manager Nestmann. “That excites me.” This is an opportunity for his company. “It makes perfect sense to use the strengths of JAL.” Expertise in security requirements such as the operation of flight services and of course the global network of the Japanese can help.
And besides JAL, Volocopter has also found other Japanese donors. The insurer Mitsui Sumitomo, for example, wants to offer insurance products for the booming market in the future. Nestmann is therefore looking to East Asia with optimism: “We don’t see any big show stoppers there.”
Wingcopter also recognizes a strategic market in Japan which, with the ANA alliance, could become the starting point for the global take-off. The company is not concentrating on local services like the Japanese electronics group Sony, which is just entering the market, but on longer distances.
Wingcopter’s drone can take off vertically with tilting propellers and then fly like a mini-airplane with its fixed wings. Bill Wingsley, Head of Business Development at Wingcopter, says: “Japan is ideal for delivery drones, there are many remote islands and mountain regions.”
He also praised the support of the authorities who made it possible to test Wingcopter in Japan as early as 2019. From the southern Japanese city of Goto, Wingcopter flew medicines to sparsely populated islands. Not all countries have approved the long-haul flights so smoothly, says Wingsley.
There are now other plans, especially with ANA. “Without Covid-19 we would be a lot further,” says Wingsley. Meanwhile, the head of the Japanese start-up Skydrive, Tomohiro Fukuzawa, is optimistic about the good environment. Volocopter is ahead of the Japanese, he admits. “But Skydrive is catching up.”
More: Sony is attacking the drone market with its Airpeak brand