Julie Garland is President of the Joint European Drone Associations (JEDA)
Is the industry in Europe in crisis, and if so, how is that crisis related to a lack of regulatory resources to move to beyond visual line of sight drone (BVLOS) operations at scale?
The new regulation was perceived to be a harmonised approach across European Member States, to BVLOS operations – a risk-management tool that would allow for higher risk operations. But none of that has happened.
We’re five years down-the-line and we don’t have large-scale BVLOS operations. We don’t have access to airspace. Specific Assurance Integrity Level (SAIL) III is about the highest level we have reached, SAIL IV in very few cases, but this has been a huge struggle. So, so we’re sitting at this low end of risk where we don’t have prolific drone operations and all of this is the result of over-regulation of the industry, from the outset.
We needed to prove safety standards, but we haven’t had any fatal accidents or major incidents, and technology is constantly improving. The barrier between the open and specific categories is too high and we’re very limited in what we can do in the open category so we automatically push people into the specific category. It is very complex to get an authorisation in the specific category.
National aviation authorities have generally recognised that they need to increase their resources and in some cases this has happened.
At the technical advisory board European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) meeting last week, we met with regulators to discuss industry concerns. There have been very significant changes within EASA. Previously, the agency had a dedicated drone department including everything from air worthiness, flight operations, regulations and U-space. now most of that has been transferred to the airworthiness department under the Director of Certification Rachel Daeschler. Given the blockages on acceptance of technical standards this may be a positive. However, U-space is out on its own still.
On one side this is positive, but the feedback we got from EASA is that there are significant resource issues. We were delighted that as an industry we had been invited to sit around the table with them and we are starting to play a much more proactive role. But the reality is that it would be far better if the regulators themselves were more proactive.
We came up with seven issues where we felt that there were major roadblocks in what’s going on, which need to be addressed before the industry fails, because the industry is on tenterhooks at the moment and we need to alleviate the cost and the complexity of applications immediately. Not in 12 months’ time, not in 18 months’ time, but now.
But the problem is I think we’ve dropped off the priority list within EASA and that’s going have a disastrous effect on the industry. We need to be made a priority again.
Where does that leave certification of U-space service and CIS providers? What can the national regulators certify and what can EASA certify?
Within EASA now there is just one person dealing with U-space and that’s for the regulatory oversight of the certification of U-space service and common information service providers (USSPs and CISPs). So any organisation which has applied as a USSP, bar one, has been put on the shelf because EASA can only process one application at a time.
We see U-space as being the EASA means to remove roadblocks to drone operators accessing airspace, but we’re left in a dire situation where we’re going to have one USSP certified, and many months later, another. While I celebrate any USSP being certified – it’s long overdue – we want to make sure that there’s competition in the market.
In terms of certifying at a national or EU level I think that is a question that really needs to go to EASA. I think some national regulators believe that they can certify USSPs but only at a national level.
If you’re certified by your national regulator, that should allow you, thanks to the EU U-space regulation, to provide service anywhere within the EU.
That is my understanding of the how European regulation works. But the reality seems to be that because USSPs are in such high demand, when they do get a national certification that will probably take up most of their bandwidth. It’s still very fragile, it’s still very new and everybody’s on a learning curve, looking at, for example, how to charge for services where those services were previously freely available. We need these services to have larger scale operations. We need access to airspace to have larger scale operations.
There are ecosystems with complex drone operations starting to form in Europe, such as the North Sea ports and Dublin, where we’re now seeing BVLOS drone deliveries rising. Do we need certified U-space operations?
Yes, because in Dublin these operations are taking place in Class C air space. Manna Drone Delivery is operating BVLOS services in a three-kilometre range, with reasonable proximity to Dublin airport. But it’s in Class C airspace, where a UAS geographical zone (UGZ) was put over that bubble and that only works there. If another drone operator wants to fly in the UGZ it has to apply to Dublin air traffic control and then Manna who would then facilitate the operation in the blocked-off airspace. From a drone operator’s perspective, that’s not ideal. Manna has been very conscious of the fact it needs to provide access to other operators, but this is not scalable.
The company’s future expansion in Dublin will not be predicated on the use of UGZs; it will simply be coordinated with other operators.
We now have Wing operating in Dublin. Manna is looking at its expansion programme and we’re soon going to have BVLOS more operators in the city. Manna and Wing have systems that are compatible to map their flight planning and so on. Dublin air traffic control knows where the drone operations bubble is and if it requires access to the airspace, it contacts the operators directly. That works when it’s two BVLOS operators working in the same place but if there’s numerous BVLOS operations we will have to get to U-space.
We desperately need U-space so multiple BVLOS and VLOS operators can work in the same airspace for both Class C and Class G operations. In Class G it starts becoming more complex because we’re operating at low levels but if we want to operate any higher than 400 feet, then we can’t really do it without segregating the airspace or having U-space in place.
What will happen in Europe to Europe’s drone industry if this logjam continues, if we don’t get permission.? What is the worst-case scenario?
Because industry has not been able to reach its predicted milestone investment is drying up. The purse strings are tightening and if those purse strings keep tightening because operators can’t meet the business targets because the regulatory and access-to-airspace hurdles remain, the industry will implode. There is absolutely no doubt that if the funding stops, the industry will cease to exist and we won’t be able to get to anywhere close to where we planned.
European drone associations see among our members some really positive stories but we also see the battles that operators are having to go through.
| JEDA – representing Europe’s national drone associations
JEDA, Joint European Drone Associations was established November 2021 and represents drone associations from over 20 member states. It is a new policy-oriented partnership, created to promote the interests of the growing number of stakeholders engaged in the operation, production, research and development, service, and applications of all kinds of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in Europe. Also, JEDA aims to represent the increased legislative and regulatory activity that affects everyone who flies a drone for personal and professional use and to develop and maintain a common understanding of the seamless integration of UAS/RPAS into aviation and the European airspace system. https://www.jeda-uas.eu/
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