U-space has long been positioned as the enabling framework for scalable BVLOS drone operations in Europe.

But as regulators and industry move closer to live deployment, the conversation is shifting from theory to commercial reality.

And so, Moderator Richard Boden, Chief Operating Officer at Murzilli Consulting, opened the third panel of Aerial Cities 2025, where panellists set to analyse the commercial realities of U-Space while highlighting the tension between enabling growth and over-regulation.

The audience heard from:

  • Larissa Haas, Head of Technology and Innovation Section at the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation
  • Nina Dorfmayr, Head of Drone Competence Centre at Austro Control
  • Matthias Gronstedt
  • Khushboo Wadhwani, Principal Research Engineer at Collins Aerospace

At Aerial Cities 2025, a panel of regulators and technology providers discussed what it really takes to operationalise U-space in dense, urban environments, and where the friction points remain.

The session brought together perspectives from Switzerland, Austria, Ireland and Germany, covering regulation, automation, social acceptance and the less visible challenge of coordination.

U-space as a strategic decision

Larissa Haas, Head of Technology and Innovation Section at the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA), was clear that Switzerland’s decision to implement U-space was strategic from the outset.

“From a FOCA perspective, implementing U-space was really a strategy decision right from the beginning because we think this is the only way, or a major way, to mitigate the air risk in a reasonable time frame,” she said.

That focus on air risk is closely tied to the commercial challenge operators face today. As Larissa noted, air risk is one of the biggest challenges for operators to fly BVLOS to scale, and U-space infrastructure is viewed as “the key measure to tackle that”.

There is also a less-discussed benefit for authorities themselves: internal estimates suggest that, with a U-space airspace framework in place, the time required to approve a BVLOS drone operation under the SORA framework would decrease by approximately 30-40%.

“It’s not only beneficial from an operator perspective but also from a resource perspective when you think as a regulator, especially in today’s setting,” Larissa added.

A pragmatic and stepwise approach

Meanwhile, Austria has taken a more incremental route. Nina Dorfmayr, who leads the Drone Competence Centre at Austro Control, described a deliberate decision to move step by step rather than wait for perfect conditions.

“We have taken a stepwise and quite pragmatic approach for integrating drones in our airspace,” she said, explaining that a UTM system has already been developed to support drone operations in control zones.

Formal U-space designation has yet to take place in Austria, primarily because the necessary legal foundations are still missing at the national level. Current legislation does not yet provide for a designated competent authority to oversee U-space, effectively preventing formal rollout despite technical and operational progress elsewhere. Until those legal provisions are updated, implementation remains constrained, regardless of readiness in other parts of the system.

Despite that, the focus remains on balance.

“Our main focus is on balancing regulation, growth, and acceptance. Probably not every BVLOS drone operation will need the full U-Space stack, but the ultimate goal should be that those systems make their life easier and also make it easier to scale”, Nina said.

Technology is not the problem

From an industry and systems perspective, experts believe the fundamental technology required to support U‑space is no longer an obstacle.

As Khushboo Wadhwani, Principal Research Engineer at Collins Aerospace, stated: “The technology is here. Technology is not the problem.”

She added that the years of research programmes, demonstrations and validation exercises have already proven that the core capabilities needed for advanced traffic management in shared airspace are technically achievable.

Nevertheless, the real friction appears when those capabilities are moved out of controlled trials and into day‑to‑day operations. Drawing on recent deployment and validation work in Ireland, Khushboo highlighted a persistent gap between what systems can do and how they are expected to operate in live environments.

“When you go down to operations, there are challenges in terms of what are the rules, what are the procedures, and what are the data exchanges required,” she explained. These challenges are amplified when new, highly automated systems are introduced into an airspace that is still shaped by traditional ATM processes and institutional expectations.

Automation, in this context, is both an enabler and a test. While it delivers clear gains, it also forces uncomfortable questions that extend beyond engineering performance. For U-space to move from concept to accepted infrastructure, automation must be trusted not only by operators and regulators but also by the wider public.

That trust, Khushboo argued, depends on transparency and clarity. Systems must be understandable, predictable and demonstrably safe to close the gap between technical sophistication and societal acceptance if urban drone operations are to scale sustainably.

Coordination before scale

If technological issues are largely solved, coordination remains an obstacle. Larissa Haas was candid in acknowledging the areas in which Switzerland had underestimated the effort required.

“We expected that the different stakeholders would be able to coordinate themselves on their own, but writing emails and connecting people is obviously not enough,” she said.

U‑space brings together actors that have not previously interacted at scale: air navigation and U‑space service providers, as well as drone operators, are now required to work within a shared operational framework, creating brand-new dependencies and lines of communication. That added complexity ultimately pushed FOCA to reassess how the entire implementation process needed to be structured and coordinated.

By breaking the U-space regulations into defined working packages, Switzerland created a structure that allowed progress. This included aligning USSP service descriptions, defining test baselines, addressing the ANSP-to-USSP data exchange, and finally addressing the long-delayed connection between operators and service providers. Though Larissa did acknowledge that this has caused a significant delay.

From pilots to live operations

Despite the challenges, Zurich is moving closer to live deployment. Switzerland plans to begin with a single U-space airspace over the city, rather than a nationwide rollout. The initial volume will cover controlled Class D airspace over the urban area, around ten kilometres north to south and seventeen kilometres west to east.

According to Larissa, field tests are already underway to validate the basic functionalities of U-space. The trials involve four different USSPs and focus on testing interoperability and data exchange. These tests will feed into a final risk assessment, with designation targeted for the second half of 2026.

Funding is also being approached pragmatically, with the intention to implement that infrastructure fully on a user-based pricing model with limited public funding during the early phase before transitioning to a market-driven model.

Industry realities and human constraints

From the technology provider side, Matthias Gronstedt stressed that progress should not be underestimated.

“We are doing something that nobody has done before in history,” he said. “It’s not easy from a technology point of view, but also you have to recruit the people.”

For Matthias, the limiting factor is not ambition but capacity. “It could be faster, but it cannot be faster because there are not enough people,” he said, referring to the strain on authorities and companies alike as they build entirely new operational ecosystems.

He also argued that U-space should not be seen in isolation. It is a good start, but UTM technology is the real enabler while calling for broader, countrywide approaches that go beyond airport-centric airspace volumes.

Commercial value and transparency

When the discussion turned to benefits, the panel moved beyond safety alone. Larissa Haas framed U‑space as a catalyst for growth, pointing to its role in creating entirely new markets and unlocking additional value by making more innovative drone operations commercially viable. Though she emphasised that market potential is closely tied to public trust.

Nina Dorfmayr also highlighted transparency as a critical societal benefit, noting that as drone activity increases, so too does the desire to understand who is flying, where and at what scale. By making operations more visible and accountable, U‑space can help address public concern and support broader social acceptance.

For operators, those same mechanisms translate into predictability. Khushboo Wadhwani underlined the importance of reliable access to shared airspace, where automated flight authorisations and common surveillance provide clarity and confidence. Together, these elements form the operational foundation that allows commercial drone activity to scale in a controlled, trusted and economically sustainable way.

The long view

What emerged from the session was a realistic assessment of what it takes to operationalise U-space in cities. Regulation exists, technology largely works, but processes and coordination remain decisive. Thus, progress is likely to be better if incremental.

The question is no longer whether it is needed, but how patiently Europe is prepared to build the foundations required to make it work at scale.

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