U-ELCOME progress: first drone flights to transport goods from Malpensa

During the night of 8-9 July, the first set of test flights were carried out using drones with vertical take-off and landing capabilities to transport goods from Malpensa’s airport Cargo City to Barbarini & Foglia’s logistics warehouse. The relevant drones cargo operations were carried out without affecting Malpensa airport manned aviation operations.

The cargo operations were conducted by Technosky using a NIMBUS cargo drone model performing a 8 km round trip, twice, transporting a small payload. The flights will continue tonight from the same starting point to the SEBI logistics warehouse, covering a distance of 7 km between round trips. These are overnight test flights to be followed by further flights operated by Telespazio with Dronus, and other operators during autumn 2024 as part of the Italian Demonstration Cluster coordinated by ENAV.

The aim of the flight trials is to test this innovative transport mode with drones (Innovative Air Mobility) enabled by the U-space U1 and U2 services provided by Dflight. The flight trials activities from the Cargo City of Malpensa may contribute to the launch of large-scale drone cargo delivery services in the future, optimising delivery times, reducing CO2 emissions as an alternative to road transport, promoting environmental sustainability and decarbonisation.

These objectives are at the heart of the European project U-ELCOME (U-space European COMmon dEpLoyment), coordinated by EIH (EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub) in the context of the SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking Digital Sky Demonstrator initiative, co-funded by the European Union under the CEF (The Connecting Europe Facility) programme and in which SEA Milan Airports has the role of Coordinator of the Milan Sandbox.

SEA Milan Airports collaborates with the Italian partners of the project: ENAV, Dflight, EuroUSC Italia, Telespazio, TECHNO SKY and Dronus in the planning and development of the relevant flight campaigns, and with ENAC for the regulatory aspects, the flight authorisations and the implementation of the Milan Sandbox.

The aim of the flight trials is to test this innovative transport mode with drones (Innovative Air Mobility) enabled by the U-space U1 and U2 services provided by Dflight. The flight trials activities from the Cargo City of Malpensa may contribute to the launch of large-scale drone cargo delivery services in the future, optimising delivery times, reducing CO2 emissions as an alternative to road transport, promoting environmental sustainability and decarbonisation.

These objectives are at the heart of the European project U-ELCOME (U-space European COMmon dEpLoyment), coordinated by EIH (EUROCONTROL Innovation Hub) in the context of the SESAR 3 Joint Undertaking Digital Sky Demonstrator initiative, co-funded by the European Union under the CEF (The Connecting Europe Facility) programme and in which @SEA Milan Airports has the role of Coordinator of the Milan Sandbox.

SEA Milan Airports collaborates with the Italian partners of the project: ENAV, Dflight, EuroUSC Italia, Telespazio, TECHNO SKY and Dronus in the planning and development of the relevant flight campaigns, and with ENAC for the regulatory aspects, the flight authorisations and the implementation of the Milan Sandbox.

U-ELCOME is a 3-year SESAR Digital Sky Demonstrator project, involving 51 partners whose overall aim is to support the market uptake of U1 and U2 services. With demonstrations taking place in three European countries, the project aims to develop interoperability and support EU harmonisation of U-space services. Taking into consideration the various U-Space actors and stakeholders this project values collaboration and information-sharing. Join us to find out more about the research project and what activities are planned and how the project hopes to make U-space a European reality.