The number of uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) flights recorded in New Zealand’s AirShare application continues to rise, an indicator of both increasing UAS activity across New Zealand and a higher adoption of AirShare by operators. The application provides pre-flight conflict alerting, in-flight alerting of other UAS operations becoming active nearby, automatic generation of pre-formatted NOTAM proposals and shares UAS flight intentions with Flight Advisor (low-level airspace advisory tool).
More than 70,000 drone flights have been logged in AirShare by New Zealand drone pilots in the last 12 months within the country. The application integrates with Airways New Zealand’s flight progress strip system at air traffic control towers, minimising the impact to air traffic controllers.
The graph below shows the increasing use of AirShare, both in controlled and uncontrolled airspace between 2021 and 2024, despite AirShare now considering transit lanes and excluding flights in these areas from control zones.
The graph below shows the average number of UA flights being planned per month within each control zone.
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Images: AirShare
