The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has issued a Notice of Proposed Amendment 2026-103 ADDENDUM to NPA 2026-103 (A) “in accordance with Article 6 of Management Board Decision 01-2022” to amend the U-space regulation.
The amendment lays out EASA’s proposals for introducing new categories of U-space, most radically, a “U-space light” category.
“Practically, to facilitate U-space airspace designation and enable large-scale BVLOS operations, the proposal offers the Member States to select an initial subset of mandatory U-space services where the density of UAS operations does not require strategic deconfliction in space and time,” says the proposal. “In such cases, robust operational conditions and airspace constraints are necessary to maintain an equivalent level of safety to that achieved in U-space airspace where all four mandatory services are required. Accordingly, the possibility for Member States to designate U-space airspace level 1, is envisaged only for use cases where the U-space airspace is designated below VFR minima and outside controlled airspace, urban areas and complex environments, such as ports.
“More specifically, the risks arising from replacing strategic deconfliction before take-off with tactical deconfliction based on traffic information should be mitigated by reducing the likelihood of encountering other aircraft and by providing UAS operators with sufficient time to prevent potential collision hazards, for example by establishing a sufficiently large well-clear volume around UAS operations.”
EASA intends to amend the U-space and the Drones Regulations by identifying the conditions for simplifying the obligation to provide the four mandatory U-space services and to introduce effective solutions to enable BVLOS operations quickly and at scale across all EU Member States”, says a preamble to the proposed amendment. “According to an EASA survey collecting data from 11 EASA Member States, 496 of the 2 486 operational authorisations that were active at the time of the survey concerned BVLOS operations. Of those BVLOS authorisations, 89 were reported as relating to economically viable operations. They are concentrated in two Member States — Germany and Norway — which benefit from particular operational circumstances.”
The amendment has been sent to UAS operators (private and commercial); NAAs; remote pilots; UAS manufacturers; other airspace users (manned aircraft); ATM/ANS providers, U-space service providers (USSPs) and common information service (CIS) providers
Comments are required by 12 July 2026. The comments received will be discussed at a focused consultation meeting that will be held online on 15 July 2026.
Unmanned Airspace will provide more detail on the amendment and industry feedback later this week.
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