EASA sends proposed air taxi and drone regulations for passage into EU law

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has presented its proposal for air taxi and other next-generation aircraft regulation in a text now awaiting approval or amendment into law by the bloc’s executive body.

Released under the characteristically EU administrativese title of Opinion 03/2023, the EASA proposal sets out a “comprehensive regulatory framework to address new operational and mobility concepts that are based on innovative technologies” – in this case for air taxis, drones, and other emerging aerial applications. 

Read: EU seeks sector input to create unified counter-drone capacities

In doing so, it lays out both initial and longer-term rules for craft operation, air traffic management, certification of pilots and other crew members, and vertiport conception, and places that activity within the comprehensive EU-wide airspace rules known as SERA.

The EASA policy has many points in common with the “Innovate28” plan the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) revealed in July outlining ways to phase in air taxi and other next-generation aerial services through 2028. 

One major difference between the two, however, is that while the FAA offers a working blueprint to build from, the EASA’s text represents the actual rules air taxi and other sector operators would be operating from – not counting any changes made by the EU Commission, which is responsible for passing the final version into law.

Another big point of distinction is EASA nomenclature used. At first glance that might seem like a quirk of vocabulary, but the discrepancies may well eventually force a change in the terms air taxi developers, drone sector companies, and even (ahem) journalists outside the EU use.

For starters, say adieu, auf Wiedersehen, adios, and whatever Esperanto is for “later, dude” to advanced air mobility; get used to the EASA’s innovative air mobility (IAM) term for air taxi and drone transport of passengers and cargo. 

Read: Wingcopter gets $43 million EU infusion to scale drone deliveries

Amid that broader IAM rubric is good old urban air mobility (UAM), which takes place in and above towns and cities, and includes commercial, public service, and emergency and medical response activities. The non-urban air mobility (NAM) category covers similar operations outside urban centers.

Though flights classified as IAM may also function in NAM settings, the reverse will not be permitted.

Finally, the EASA document doesn’t use the term vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) to designate next generation craft like air taxis and drones, but instead the somewhat fudged “new” appellation VCA, for “VTOL-capable aircraft (VCA).”

As readers might imagine, the EASA proposal quickly gets deep in the weeds of regulation esoterica that only air taxi developer and emerging drone service providers could love (and who can indulge themselves by consulting the opinion). In doing so, it details amendments to existing EU aviation regulations, and proposes creation of two new rules seeking to:

• ensure a high and uniform level of safety for UAS subject to certification and operated in the ‘specific’ category and for operations with manned VCA;
• enable operators to safely operate manned VCA in the single European sky (SES);
• create the conditions for the safe operation of UAS and of manned VCA in the U-space airspace;
• promote innovation and development in the field of innovative air mobility (IAM) while establishing an efficient, proportionate, and well-designed regulatory framework, free of burdensome requirements that could hinder the development of the UAS market;
• harmonise the regulatory framework across the EU Member States by enhancing clarity, filling the gaps, and removing the inconsistencies that are inherent to fragmented regulatory systems;
• foster an operation-centric, proportionate, as well as risk- and performance-based regulatory framework, considering important aspects such as privacy, personal data protection, security, and safety.