Osaka Metro's OSAKAKO Vertiport at Osaka Port's Chuo Pier is the clearest signal yet that Japan's air-mobility market has moved past renderings. The facility was completed and unveiled in March 2025 with a ceremony held alongside Osaka City, after the city selected Osaka Metro in January 2024 as the operator of a vertiport serving the Expo venue in Minato Ward.
What is actually on the site
The vertiport is a complete operating package rather than a landing pad: a hangar for maintenance, refuelling and storage of eVTOL aircraft, a take-off and landing area, and a passenger facility where visitors can walk a simulated check-in and boarding sequence — facial recognition included — against a mock-up aircraft.
SkyDrive and the Expo shuttle
SkyDrive, the Aichi-based manufacturer preparing commercial eVTOL services, used the site for demonstration flights during the Expo programme, running between the EXPO Vertiport inside the Expo grounds and OSAKAKO. That pairing — one pad at a destination, one pad in the city — is the smallest viable version of an urban air network.
A mobility hub, not an airfield
The most consequential design decision is that OSAKAKO is built to connect eVTOL flights to on-demand buses and shared bicycles, feeding Osaka Metro's "e METRO" MaaS programme across nine metro lines and the driverless New Tram. The name itself references Osaka Ko station on the Chuo Line: this is transit infrastructure wearing transit naming conventions.
Source: Airports International — Osaka Metro unveils OSAKAKO vertiport.