London, UK: Drone operators wanting to fly in the airspace around Southampton Airport can now benefit from a digital flight approval service, NATS Services has announced.
From today, drone pilots wanting to fly in or through the Flight Restriction Zone around Southampton Airport will be able to request access online or via the Altitude Angel Drone Assist app, with approvals being granted in as little as a few minutes.
This new digital service replaces a process that could take up to 14 days or more.
The deployment of Approval Services at Southampton Airport is the second following Aberdeen International Airport, where Approval Services went live at the end of September and is already helping drone users gain access to the airspace they need.
NATS Services says the deployment is an important step towards delivering a fully integrated airspace, where drones fly seamlessly and safely alongside other aircraft.
Richard Ellis, NATS Services New Airspace Users Director, said: “We want to support the growth of the UK drone industry, and this second deployment is part of our plan to deliver an ecosystem that can deliver certainty for drone operators. Deploying a digital flight approval service allows us to do just that, while ensuring our controllers maintain situational awareness of what is operating in the airspace around them.”
Chris Forster, Altitude Angel, Chief Operating Officer, added: “It’s exciting to see Southampton Airport come online with the Approval Services platform. As more airports are added to the network, we’re able to provide safe & seamless access to more airspace, enabling more businesses and public services to benefit from drone operations.”
Gavin Williams, Managing Director of Southampton Airport, said: “We welcome this new innovative digital drone flight approval service streamlining the operation and enhancing the safety for our air traffic control partners, NATS.”
Approval Services is aimed primarily at commercial drone pilots who need speed and confidence to support their operations. A free service for non-commercial users who are willing to wait 14 days or more for their flight plan to be processed, is also available.
NATS Services expects to continue extending the service to other airports where it provides the air traffic service in the coming months.
About Altitude Angel
Altitude Angel is an award-winning provider of UTM (Unified Traffic Management) software, enabling those planning to operate, or develop, UTM/U-Space solutions to quickly integrate robust data and services with minimum effort.
Today, Altitude Angel’s market-defining technology is providing a critical, enabling service on which the future of UTM will be built across the globe. Altitude Angel has been leading a consortium of businesses to build and develop a ‘drone superhighway’ connecting airspace above Reading, Oxford, Coventry, and Rugby. The SKYWAY superhighway network, enabled using Altitude Angel’s patented Arrow® technology, will unlock the huge potential offered by unmanned aerial vehicles and be a catalyst to enable growth in the urban air mobility industry.
Altitude Angel’s first party solutions also power some of the world’s leading ANSPs, aviation authorities and Enterprises, including NATS (Services) Ltd (UK), LVNL (Netherlands) and Avinor (Norway), empowering them with new capabilities to safely manage and integrate drone traffic into national operations.
By unlocking the potential of drones and helping national aviation authorities, ANSPs, developers and enterprise organisations, Altitude Angel is establishing new services to support the growth in the drone industry.
Altitude Angel was founded by Richard Parker in 2014 and is headquartered in Reading, UK.
Altitude Angel’s developer platform is open and available to all at https://developers.altitudeangel.com
About NATS
NATS is the UK’s principal air navigation services provider and is split into two main businesses, which provide two distinct services:
• NATS (En Route) plc (NERL) — the regulated business, which provides air traffic management services to aircraft within UK airspace and over the eastern part of the North Atlantic; and
• NATS (Services) Ltd (NSL) — the unregulated business, which provides air traffic control services at many of the UK’s major airports (15 civil and 7 military airfields) and other airports overseas.
NATS provides aerodrome, data, engineering, capacity, efficiency and environmental performance solutions to customers worldwide, including airports, airlines, air traffic service providers and governments.
NATS handled 2.4m flights in the UK in the last financial year (2023/24).
For more information visit the NATS website at www.nats.aero
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