A drone has officially operated in the skies around Brussels Airport for the first time, successfully flying almost autonomously for a nearly six-kilometre trip in the European capital’s airspace. The mission was permitted thanks to new rules designating where drone flights can happen around the city.
The groundbreaking journey departed at 10:00 am from a roof-top platform on the Living Tomorrow tower, a 50-metre-high building which is part of an “innovation campus”. The drone flew 5.7km, venturing across the Brussels Ring Road four times and overflying and inspecting the Vilvoorde Viaduct, before returning.
Remote control
It was controlled from afar, by two pilots situated 13km away in the SkeyDrone control room. SkeyDrone is a joint venture between the Belgian Air Navigation Service Provider Skeyes and Brussels Airport Company that aims to offer “end-to-end solutions for all your business needs related to the use of uncrewed aircraft.”
The drone, provided by DroneLand, only needed human intervention once during the entire operation, when the pilots assumed control briefly to perform an inspection of the viaduct works, zooming in and taking photographs with the drone’s camera. The rest of its trip was carried out autonomously, helping to prove “that we are ready to take the next step with drones,” Johan Decuyper, CEO of Skeyes said.
U-space zones integrate different modes of flight
Drone flights have been made possible around Belgium’s national airport thanks to changes in regulations to create a so-called “U-space” zone in which drones are able to fly in the hub’s airspace out of pilots’ sightlines. Other significant transport gateways such as Antwerp Port are also trialling the U-space concept.
By autumn 2025, authorities intend to have established a series of U-space locations where there is demand for what Decuyper has called “a workable ecosystem” of “economically relevant applications for unmanned aviation.” The North Sea and Belgian coastal region and the country’s industrial hubs are places where it has been suggested businesses and governments will want to make use of different modes of urban mobility and logistics.
Safely integrating different modes of aviation, such as crewed and uncrewed flights, within the Controlled Traffic Region (CTR) of an international airport is not without its challenges. Air safety authorities in the United States have recently banned the mix of commercial jets and helicopters in Washington D.C’s airspace after a fatal collision in late January 2025 between an American Airlines passenger plane and a military chopper that killed all 167 people on board.
