The Vertical Space

#106 Koen De Vos: U-Space, U-Space… Where Art Thou?

• Luka T • Episode 106

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In this episode we sit down with Koen De Vos, Secretary General of GUTMA, to unpack why U-Space still feels more aspirational than operational, and what aviation can learn from industries that have at least partially managed to digitize at scale. Drawing on parallels with the automotive sector, Koen explores how green technologies, automation, and system-level thinking could, and should, reshape aviation if the institutional and political pieces ever align.

We dive into why U-Space has not meaningfully materialized in Europe yet, the evolving role of regulators like EASA, and how European and US approaches to UTM diverge in both philosophy and execution. Koen also shares his perspective on air risk mitigation, whether U-Space is being used as a safety crutch, and perhaps most provocatively, who is actually willing to pay for UTM and why many business cases quietly fall apart. A clear-eyed conversation about political will, practical constraints, and what UTM might look like if we were brave enough to start from scratch.

Koen

It is the digitalization of your aviation rules where for the first time, the aviation regulators, which in many cases come from aeronautical engineering, and then suddenly they are not dealing with aircraft, but they have to deal with big data. Where are the software engineers? I can count the number of software engineers in EASA on my hand, and it is one little finger.

Jim

Hey, welcome back to The Vertical Space and our conversation with Koen DeVos, the Secretary General of the Global UN Crewed Traffic Management Association, otherwise known as GUTMA. Koen starts with the discussion around the importance of learning from other industries Like the automotive sector to advance aviation, particularly in green and automated technologies. We discussed the challenges faced in transitioning to digital aviation and the roles of institutions like EASA in this transition. Key challenges obviously include maintaining public safety, balancing political risks, and implementing complex regulations. The discussion highlights the differences in approaches between Europe and the US in managing air traffic for drones and emphasizes the importance of political will and practical solutions to advance the European ecosystem. I bet a lot of you will probably be surprised by Koen assessment of the UTM business opportunities as well. Koen joined GUTMA in April 21. Koen spent nearly 30 years at the European Commission where he worked on aviation, transport, and labor policy From 2013 onwards, he served as a senior drone expert contributing to the development of the EU's Regulatory and policy framework for unmanned aviation and U-space. Koen joined the European Commission in 1993, initially working on social and employment policy. Before entering the commission, he held economic positions at the University of Antwerp and at the Higher Institute for Labor Studies in Leuven Belgium. Koen holds a master of law and a master of economics. Koen, welcome to The Vertical Space. great having you on. Thanks for joining us.

Koen

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Jim

Our first question, is there anything that very few in the industry agree with you on?

Learning from other industries

Koen

That's a difficult question and, and. At the beginning, I would say everybody agrees with me, with me, but after some reflection, there are many things that I sometimes find myself quite alone in, in, in, in believing that aviation can and must learn much more from outside its own sector. And I'm an avid reader of the Financial Times. And every morning already for 40 years, I'm that old. Every morning I read all the newspapers, and then I try to translate the newspapers of other industries towards aviation and drones. And every time I'm come up with, with, with very interesting stories. And every time you try to, to see what principles, what ideas can we steal from other industries. And especially, I'm then much interested in, for instance, the, the car industry, European car industry, which is also subject to the push to greening electric cars, a push to automation, more automation to autonomous cars. And also, you know, that due to security reasons and this new geopolitical context, it's also part of your sovereignty. You can only build tanks if you have a quite effective car manufacturing industry. So it is subject. To exactly the same pressures as we are meeting in aviation. And that's why I miss it. And that that aviation, many aviation people, they think that the good ideas only can come from aviation people because only they have that safety culture, which is unique. And we are unique. No, we can always learn from other industries. So, so if you look at what's happening in the car industry, and especially speaking then for the European car industry, they were missing a little bit greening, pressure. So they have been holding on far too long on the combustion engine. they are missing a little bit on, on the automation things. And now the Europeans, the companies of 100 years old, they have to team up with companies which are hardly 10, 15 years old and came from a completely different dangle. Build your dreams. It came, it was a, is a, it was a battery maker and they swapped into cars. So Bob, this is incredible. If these things also happened in aviation, we can learn a lot because they, I have the impression that at least the car industry is a little bit ahead of us. So there we see, ooh, who will be the winners and losers and, and what will be the services that we have to focus on? What will be the new business models that we, we have to look at? And you see how many companies in the car industry at least, they are more and more integrating vertically Tesla. They, they, they build their own batteries. They have even their own minds. And then on top of that, they build a car, which is more it. So if you translate that to aviation, who will be able to do that? And if you look at for instance, wing or Amazon, they are exactly doing that. They build their own drones, they operate them themselves. They are their own airport. They are their own air navigation service provider, UTM provider. So you see their Vertical integration and in such a market. That's why we have to learn to navigate and these are the, the, for me, the practical lessons that we can learn from other industries and which is, which is make it so interesting. And I also think that you can see what is the role of the incumbents. To what extent are they cooperative or are there drag on progress? If you look at again, the European car manufacturers, some are pleading for extending that, that deadline of 2035 to have that combustion engine abolished or not. Some are pleading for very high tariff falls to keep. Chinese cars out of European market while others they claim just the opposite. So you know that the incumbents play a pivotal for the role. And again, if you translate that into aviation, what is the role for important aviation actors who play and keep on playing a very important role, for instance, especially in UTM, if we focus now on UTM, to what extent are European navigation service providers facilitating the transition to its digital aviation? Or to what extent are they just trying to hold or seeking a niche and try to translate their natural monopoly in analog aviation to a digital monopoly in digital aviation? These are these, these are big questions and we.

Jim

good. Very good. That was a thorough answer to a simple question. That

Koen

Yeah, but you make me think, you make me think and it's very interesting question.

Jim

I love using outside, industries. I am not an aviation thoroughbred myself. I've been involved almost 30 years now, but I came from healthcare and then before that the military. Let's say you were, and you already gave some very good examples of what maybe comes from the automobile industry. And so if you were to say the most controversial parts of what you've seen from other industries, what are the most controversial parts of what you've seen where you get a lot of pushback when you introduce them to our industry?

Koen

Yeah, Where I see resistance is, is people are not able to smartly translate analog aviation to digital aviation, and they are not able to move from moving aircraft and moving people to, with services and, and value that will be created in those new value chains. I think that's it. As, as again, if we compare WW with cars, eh, if you have autonomous cars, what is then still the value of car ownership if you are no longer able to think in terms of mobility? And, and there I get pushback if you start reasoning in terms of mobility and completely different value chains for aviation, if that is clear. I have correctly understood your question.

Jim

Yeah. That's very good, Kun. It's very good. well, I gotta tell you, I love your enthusiasm. You have a, spark that's gonna be,

Koen

I've been looking towards this and, and, and to the, you can cut this, these things, but I've been discussing this morning still things which really make me nervous here in Europe. It's, it's incredible. Oh, no, I'm, I'm a bit nervous about here, what we have to do in Europe to catch up and, and to make Europe move. Eh, we are living. Living, yeah.

Europe in crisis

Jim

well, let's keep, if you're okay with it, we'll keep this live. And I just, let me ask you, what are you most nervous about in Europe?

UTM - quick overview and geo update

Koen

But we have to adapt to the new geopolitical context in which we have to no longer live in. Global global world where we all live according to the same values and the same open markets and the same rules and so on. But that we have to think more and more in terms of geopolitical influence zones, pillars, where you have the US sphere and maybe Europeans fear, the Russians, the Chinese, and so on. So, so, and what does it mean for us? We already said, okay, the drones and the use space UTM systems that in the past it had to do with we have to keep our competitiveness edge and that's why we have to build it. We must screen further. We are, we must make our economies green. And what has changed in during the last year or two years that everything now must be seen also through this two political glasses. So, and, and then if you ask Yeah. But how will this evolve and, and why does it keep, is it making me nervous? We have to move. We have here in Europe, we have a war going on and what will happen in, in, in the coming months, years, when the war is over and we have to flip these military Ukraine capabilities, manufacturing, managing, swarming, whatever you name it, and they're, they're top of edge. And if we in Europe, are not ready to flip these military capabilities into civil commercial opportunities, we are losing our edge. so in Europe, we always have to say never waste a good crisis. We are in a big, big crisis. So we must flip very seriously. And that's why I'm a little bit concerned that I don't see the necessary progress in the building of our drone ecosystem. It's if people working within that aviation silo, they don't see these geopolitical tensions and, and, and, and needs to move on. They don't need, they don't need that, that sense of urgency. And that's disappointing. As European, I'm speaking now as European, I'm, I've been working 30 years for the European Commission. I, I think national and, and European and global. So, so, but here I'm speaking as European. That is disappointing and that keeps me busy.

Jim

that's a, that's a very good discussion. Let's talk a little bit about, we've had some guests on who, who've given us a very good UTM perspective, but could you give us your, it's been a little while, so give us just a quick overview of OUTM as you see it, and if you want to transition to how different countries approach UTM, that'd be great.

Why is there no U-Space implemented yet

Koen

Thank you, Jim and I, I may be disappointing you. I don't see UTM as as a standalone service. It's a key enabler, but either know to what extent you should focus all your attention or your hopes to make a fortune on UTM. I, I, as I already compared with the car industry, what at the end of the day will be the drone service for which you will be able to, to, to convince people to pay you. Who will you be able to invoice and will you be able to invoice somebody for a UTM service, which can be fully automated? We have open source UTM solutions. Will you be able to invoice people for a drone operations, which also can be fully automated? Where will you get your money from? And that will come from the underlying drone service at the end of the day. For instance, if you do infrastructure in, infrastructure inspections, at the end of the day, your customer wants to have a list of places where here he, the company has to send its maintenance teams. That's what they want to know. So they are not interested in, in how many hours you have been flying. They are interested in, in the drone service, and that's what you have to see to develop. Okay, so, so, so in the, this is an overview of of of the UTM or the drone ecosystem development. So you cannot see UDM com developing completely differently from the underlying basis operations and drone service provision and so on. Then in terms of geography, where do you see UDM developing and, and you see, you see in D US where the FAA together with the industry is able to make very concrete steps forward. We have seen the Dallas places and all around where the FAA has requested a consortium of industry to focus on strategic deconfliction. And strategic deconflict is the core of the creation of a competitive market in the us. The FEA has said from the beginning, UTM services are third party services. So it is not a TO who, who is providing services. And you have a single market, you have a single authority competent for UTM. So you can allow yourself to take very concrete steps, which is completely different from Europe, where we have a completely different institution setup. We have a market which is defacto fragmented. If, if the commission does not act, we will end up with 27 markets. You have 27 different strong and advocation service providers. Which led the commission to come up very early in the process of, of building this ecosystem already with, with use based regulations. So in, in, in three regulations, we swapped from analog aviation to digital aviation. One regulation on operations, one on small drones, and the third on the new space, which is the, the UTM layer and which is by the way has a, a completely different meaning as UTM in, in the FAA, the UTM in the FAA, that was from the onset meant to help navigate small roads below 500 feet while in, in, in Europe, that was from the beginning, use space was all about robots, flying robots. And the one to end thing, you don't want to have one pilot. Against one, one aircraft, one row. No. You want to automate, it's all about automation. I'm an economists from, from training, so, so you need to scale, you need to automate first, have the rule, then the standard, then you automate and then you scale. That's the, the name of the game. You have to scale the one to N and that n must become 30, 40, 50, whatever, whatever. It'll evolve. But, but that's the rule of the game and that's where Europe is not yet in a position to materialize the the, we have a regulator F framework, new space regulation, but it was difficult to implement that in practice.

Luka

like you mentioned the regulatory framework has been around for about five years now, and to my knowledge, there is no single use space currently implemented in Europe as envisioned, five years ago. And so when, when you strip away the rhetoric, what is the real fault line in the lack of use based implementation here? What's the real bottleneck? okay. We, we, we could talk about, strategically, politically, There are a few paradoxes that maybe we can surface as well, but on a tactical level is it, the air risk assessment as the bottleneck? because it seems like it's not traffic management per se, but the lack of regulator accepted ways to assess and mitigate risks that is driving a lot of this

Koen

yeah, look, I, I think it's, it's the combination of many things at the same time, I think that even if the rules are quite okay, because we were doing many things for the first time and the commission has requested aa, the European Aviation Safety Regulator to come up with acceptable means of compliance and guidance material. Of course, they went for safety first, and maybe they have been overcomplicating. And as I already said, the use case already was conceived from day one to manage dense and more complex operations from day one. So that's why they have been imposing procedures, which may have been a little bit too heavy for early drone operations. And then of course, you already mentioned the air risk. Assessment, which every ca must undertake where for the first time they have to manage so many data, which are not yet available. So they are struggling at every single area where you can struggle. So, and, and we should not forget that this, this is a difficult exercise. It is the digitalization of your aviation rules where the, for the first time, the aviation regulators, which in many cases come from, from, from aeronautical engineering, and then suddenly they are not dealing with, with, with aircraft, but they have to deal with big data. Where are the software engineers? I can, I can count the software engineers, the number of software can engineers in EASA on my hand, and it is one little finger. On a population of 800 AASA collaborates, where can you find them in the cas? And, and it's, it's a combination of so many factors. And then also, as I said, so many things are treated and managed within the aviation silo where they don't see the urge and, and the necessity to move on and to move quickly. And I hope, and Jim, you already asked Mike, what is your concern? I hope that with a dose of geopolitical reality, that the aviation people will move on and, and will invest in these things. And there I see good things and bad things. I see good things where, for instance, we had held our, harmonized skies conference in Zurich, which is now hoping this year will become the first use space airspace in Europe fully. According to the book and, and bad things where you see strong nps who still go for a digital monopoly and at the same time, so it's, it's, it's, it's everything at the same time. Look, that, that we have to manage the technical issue, the political issues, the high, big political issues and the political will just do it.

Luka

Okay, so staying, at the zoomed out level, this certainly seems to be this core contradiction that you are circling around where the regulators don't trust automated distributed systems enough today to authorize drone operations at the scale that we're talking about. But they require those same systems to exist before they authorize drone operations. So it's this circular, system where trust is required to build a system, but you need the system to earn the trust.

Koen

Yes.

Luka

and, and this is, I don't know, is, is this a consequence of applying too much of the legacy aviation thinking? Where, where in aviation safety works kinda like this. You certify the vehicle, you certify the pilot, you control the airspace centrally. you assume that there will be near perfect compliance, and in fact, UAS turned that model kind of upside down. And so because of looking at it through that, traditional legacy aviation lens, there is this, you know, loop that doesn't close where regulators are being asked to authorize, drones, automated drones before they've seen them operate at scale. but at the same time, operators are told they need those systems in place before they can achieve scale. so it seems like it's, it's this tension between aviation safety that was built from a world where certainty, come before operations, whereas in low altitude, UAS learning has to come from operations. And so that loop needs to be broken somehow, but it lingers on for years. So how does that get unlocked?

Koen

we have to learn from others and we have to see what, what's happening. And it's not because we don't have a use space that we don't have yet. Bvi s operations. So what can we learn from current BVI operations and how can we learn from other regions? I would like to learn as European. I would like to learn from Dallas. we have, now I speak as, as, Goodman General Secretary. We have our members there. Wing is there, Zipline is there, Andre is there. These are not only members, they are board members. So if we, and Foca, the suites are also board member. So if we could get some information on, on, on the operations and have that as an input for the regulator, that would be very useful. And I think the regulators who know what's going on in other regions, they have more trust in the, in the system and they are ready to, to tick the boxes there. The problem is that, that we think that at the A-M-C-G-M, the acceptable means of compliance level, the, the, the implementation level there, there is over complication also, if you know that part of those rules have been developed by people. Who were also responsible for judicial aviation. The guy who drafted the, the list of requirements for use space service providers just made the, that same list for aviation service providers. So with that in his background, he has been applying that to US SSPs,

Luka

This seems paradoxical where Europe has had a regulatory framework. available and published for five years, and yet it still feels like we need to go and learn from operations in Dallas to inform these rules. I mean, does that make sense?

Koen

It, it also makes sense. We, we need to learn where we have, we have really where the information is. So we learn, of course from, from, from, from VI operations taking place everywhere. So in, in Europe we learn from, from. Projects like, like Cesar is financing things. So that flows into the rulemaking. So we have lined up in a normal lineup. You have the research done by, by ai, by Cesar, the single European sky, ATM research that flows into the preparation of the regulation in aa. And then at the end, the commission adopts.

Luka

But you would expect that this learning happens before the regulations are adopted. And in Europe, they have been adopted for five years now and you know how many more years of learning should the industry expect before there's some clarity? And, and I think the, the one thing that we're kind of circling as well that I, I'd like to maybe get your thoughts on is there seems to be very much a, a lack of trust by the national authorities in Europe to not, I don't know if trust is the right word, but use space is a, is a EU level construct, but implementation is entirely national and in practice it's these national authorities that don't trust the ASAs, I dunno, risk assumptions or approvals. And they feel like they need to be in the middle of these approvals because ultimately, you know, they feel exposed if something goes wrong. And so, is this a good characterization of the current state of affairs in Europe?

Koen

it goes into right direction. Let's say. we, we have been using a regulation because we wanted, I'm speaking now as ex commission official. if you want to create a single seamless European market, you have to use a regulation, giving direct rights and obligations to actors, to companies, to individuals. Fine. We have been using. The right for use, use based service providers to, to be certified. But what if the cas are not ready? They are still struggling with their air risk assessment because that was conceived in a too complex way requiring far too many information for means for, for instance, on the quality of connectivity of the number of, of GA traffic, which was not digitally available. People didn't have had a clue of how many traffic actually was taking place in, in, in a chunk of airspace, which they wanted to conceive and qualify as, as use aspace. So we are dealing with so many difficult issues at the same time, I think, and, and. That's a big difference between US and eu, where it's one single administration in the US is, is taking steps dealing with the same industry here in Europe. Yes. You, you have one regulator. It is the commission, which is the final regulator. The AI is, is, is doing the, the, the technical preparations and they have to look at, at the implementation. But at the end of the day, the only thing which works for digital services is one single market. And I think there we have to come up with solution out of the box and we cannot have that one. CEA comes up with a completely different interpretation of the same rules, which, which, which, Ali, the French and the German, they are implementing the same rules, the same European rules, which France and Germany and all the 25 other European states have adopted. And then have a completely different interpretation. And that becomes, they do have it still because it's for the first time that they are implementing it. And it's difficult. It is, it is a new thing that they have to deal. They, they are dealing with the big tech, big data and they don't have a clue. If I, I mean, just to, to, to give you a little, little story, it's our German member wants to have also an authorization, and, and, and operations license for three years. They are waiting and they try to push a little bit, give some political pushing, and what they get back is a letter in writing by, by mail, by the post complaining that they are pressing too much. Can you imagine

Luka

Who was, who sent this? The German,

Air risk mitigation

Koen

the German administration. And they have, and then you see, I'm reading by newspaper that you have a German miss for digitalization. And the same evening you hear that your German miss, your German member has received a letter by the post box saying that, don't push too much because you, you, you, you want to go too fast. Okay, good

Luka

can you give us a more granular view of what really is, the current method of air risk mitigation and why is it so controversial, difficult to achieve? you know, take us down into the weeds.

Koen

air risk mitigation. How we try to do that in use space regulation? Is that your question? So it it is the, what we have in the air risk mitigation first the operator. Must make his specific operation risk assessment the soa. So he makes this risk. And then, okay, you cannot mitigate your, your air risk and you need to have your use space service. this is starting point. And then he has to rely on use space services. And the core service of the system of new space system is strategic deconfliction. You can deconflict the whole operation in advance, and because you no longer have a natural monopoly, you are creating a competitive market. This is the core of the system, and that's why I told you. We as Europeans, and at least also we as Goodman, we are very interested to see what's happening in Dallas because that, that is mainly focused on strategic confliction and how the standard 35, 48 is being implemented. if you looking for the weeds, it is, the rule is okay, you have to, to rely on use based services to strategically conflict. How you do this is the requirement. Then how you do it in practice, that is you implement the A SCM standard 35 48, and that is done through, implemented between different several UTM providers in the US use base service providers here in Europe and they have to exchange the data and, and apparently it is not so easy to get that off the ground how

Luka

Okay, so what, what is this data exactly that is required in those regulations? what are the requirements? what's the level of awareness of, cooperative and noncooperative traffic? is everything defined already or are there still, uncertain thresholds for performance or means of compliance or, what else is lingering out there that is creating use space implementation on the error risk mitigation side. Very difficult right now.

Is U-Space used as a safety crutch?

Koen

I think we, the, the principles are there, the implementation is, is there, and that's why we are looking especially to, to sur how the Swiss are doing. from my context, from Foca, the Swiss administration, the, the, the. Practical implementation. There are still some loose ends. And and why is that? Because it's the first time that they are implementing it. They are of course learning from, from, from Dallas. They are learning from, from how to implement the 35, 48, but still in use space airspace, which is bigger and, and is put into a different context than the US Dallas, constellation. Then you, you encounter many more loose ends. For instance, if you have to communicate with a TC, how do you do that? Exactly. In US Dallas, they have avoided this problem. They have avoided because it, they, it's, it's, it's a zone of a veil, sea, sea veil or whatever. You know what's going on and everybody is. Connected In Europe, we have to in use space airspace. You might have regular contacts with a TC. How exactly is that done? There are no such protocols yet established. So beyond into USS, beyond the deconflict, then you find a new lose end, which is how to communic with, with a TC. What if suddenly a dynamic geo zone is established? Okay, is everybody aware? And how do you do that? Exactly. And then apparently then the devil is in the detail, how you in practice do it and, and who, who are the actors who can trigger such dynamic, geo funds? It's not only DNSP, but, but, but every military zone can do it. Every city, maybe a, a geo zone manager. it is. Those loose ends come then to, to, to conflict and they remain loose ends. And that's exactly why, why the first use space airspace is so difficult to establish. And that's why Zurich is so important, because that's the good example, the way forward we should learn from it. And, and we cannot learn enough from the Cesar projects, which have been financing, funding, money, use space and loan project, but they have not been implementing the inter USS and the deconfliction, the de the strategic deconfliction. They have not.

Luka

Do you think that use space is being used a bit of a, as a safety crutch right now? you know, initially use space was conceived as traffic management for cooperative UAS, or call it traffic management for these, you know, flying robots, as you described it earlier. But it is increasingly being treated as a sort of a prerequisite, safety blanket that must exist before regulators are willing to approve operations at all. Are, are we now witnessing a transition in how UTM is being used?

Europe needs political will

Koen

I don't know. I don't know. I, I look, I, I, I dunno, I, I see that CEOs are more and more willing to approve BV loss operations. If you look for instance, at at Island where, where mana. Bobby already has been twice your guest, so you know his operations, you know that, that, that he can grow and he can fly bilos under his look. That's fine. But the limit of his growth is then use space. If there is another drone operator willing to enter his space, then you must deconflict. So you must have new space in place in order to grow. So, I dunno whether you can call it a crutch. For me, it's, it's more an enabler to, to, to scale and to, to lower the cost. Again, you must have many more operations, operations to, to decrease your cost. You must scale, decrease cost, and then your service will, will, will grow, your business will grow. So I still see use space as enabler and. I also see it is not an NSP, it is not a big, big thing. It is, it is. It is software. It is software running, which, which the operators themselves can do. If, if Wing wants to join MANA in Dublin, wing Will, will run its own, will be, will be its own UTM provider. And that will not cost many, many euros. We talk about sense per, per flight, per operation. So to that extent you use an existing, infrastructure, telecom, infrastructure, whatever, but it should not be a showstopper. The showstopper is really where, as you say, Luka, it is the cas who are not, they don't have sufficient trust in the system. They don't understand it, the details of it, and they, they hesitate and then they are looking at, at why should, why should they be in a hurry? Why would they be the first. And, and you talk about safety regulators. So they, they don't want to be the first to sign off. They want to learn from each other. So that's why I'm looking for, for the green, the green hopes that we see in Europe popping up.

Luka

Other than learning from Dallas and some of the other, areas. What needs to change to break this deadlock? if we were to make some concrete steps instead of, you know, amusing at the problem for another couple of years, what needs to change to break this, circular loop that we're in.

Koen

Political will Just political will. it's, it's, it's, the use space is part of your digital aerospace infrastructure. And I already told you, we're living in a completely different geopolitical context. If you don't see drones for competitiveness, okay, fine. If you don't see it for, for greening and sustainability, fine. But if you don't see the importance of drones and new space to maintain and preserve your, your sovereignty, then I don't understand it. We had been flying here in Belgium, drones over the military base where we keep our nuclear heads and they were not able to see and in, and, and, and incept these drones. They even don't know whether it were real drones or not. Is that still? It could happen once, but it should not have happen every week. And now they are investing so much in, in, in defense stuff, but the, the basic layer of your defense and your sovereignty is a strong. Commercial civil market, and if you want to develop this market and you want to have more dense traffic, then you need to have your space. You need to have that strategic deconfliction not a matter. Okay. Thank you for Interrupting me. I like it.

Luka

and my apologies

Koen

no, no. no. I like it. Really, I, I, this is a lively exchange then.

Luka

and guys, I'm sorry. I'm monopolizing I'll, I'll get off my soapbox here but, Kun, you mentioned political will, highly, agree with you, but if you can be a bit more concrete, what does that political will necessarily translate into with respect to assuming risk? Let's say that, that you say, okay, well this is strategically relevant for Europe. Full stop. We need to do it. Get the operators here, let those drones fly.

Koen

Yep.

Luka

how do you then assume who assumes public safety risk? Who assumes political reputational risk? Who assumes a legal liability risk? in my opinion, the, the public safety risk that should be, you know, injury collision avoidance, that, that should sit in in the operator's, ballpark. But then the political will that you're referring to, I think needs to be reflected in the fact that the, the local, jurisdictions are saying, we will take on this political risk, the headline risk, we will. we will take a capped legal liability risks so that you can, put some more trust in the hands of the operators and get them comfortable with what they know that they can do safely, but you kind of support them on all the other fronts. is that a way to describe this political will and is that even, feasible coming from a European commission angle that you, that you have.

Koen

Yep. I, I, I think you described it fare well, where while in the past the political will was a bit, a little bit, take the safety and public risk against competitiveness. Okay. Who wins? Yeah. If you look in the media, one child hurt by a drone and you lose, you lose out. But here, the equation has changed completely. We had speak, just speaking for Belgium. We had drones flying over the airport. Air port was closed for hours. We had drones flying over our military bases where our nuclear heads are stored. Everybody knows that, and that is a huge political risk. We cannot afford this. It's two or three times. And that is happening now, not only in Belgium, but in nearly every European number states. So the political equation to take that drone risk has changed completely. And if they have to close systematically, then the, for another time an airport, it is a tremendous cost. So I I, I think that political equation is changing and, and then it's up to us aviation people and experts to come up with, with right proposals. And, and, and that's why I'm, I'm, I'm looking at the good examples. What can we do and, and do we have to lower our safety objectives? No, but, but, but we have way forwards and we are getting there the first good examples with the first big data being generated, which then if they, if, if Foca, the Swiss Federation signs off. Then why the, the francs would not sign off and the germs and the Belgians and so on. And then it's up to i, there there are more GreenRU, how you call that, spprt, spring up you'll have your in Belgium also, new space airspace where they want to, to create a new space airspace of over the ports. You have that in Rotterdam. So, so you see everywhere's good initiatives, which can be the basis. And given that political will, I hope in the coming years we'll have to advance and we have to catch up simply. We have to catch up if you want to stay relevant and, and sovereign, and that will be part of the equation in my humble view.

Jim

questions are gonna a little easier.

Koen

I like those question. Maybe I hope that I, I was answering more or less in the direction that you expected Luka

Jim

Well,

How UTM has changed in the last four years

Koen

and I, and I hope for the public it'll be right. That, that, that the context is changing and, and it'll no longer be decided by, by safety people alone. It's,

Jim

right, so speaking of context, let me just ask a couple of basic questions, especially for our listeners who may not be as well versed in UTM. We've been doing this for four and a half years. If we were to define UTM four and a half years ago in a certain way, how has it changed over the last four and a half years in, in broad strokes, how has the definition changed

Koen

Jim. Thank you for the question because the definition in, in the European view has not changed. It has not changed. And let me tell you, the very first meeting that we had with the commissioner in 2015, we had before, before 2015, we had sea Kaas. He was then meant commissioner, which is a kind of minister of transport, European Minister of Transport in the European Commission. And his policy was a little bit balancing between protecting the public, against promoting the drones very, very gently and very balanced. in the very first C commission communication, which I was drafting. I have changed two times the word drones into. Which was not neutral and drones was associated, associated with killing drones. So I had to change it all again. So you see how difficult it was when you had our first meeting with, with the commissioner in 2015, which was Pols. She was an engineer. She was interested in drone, file and she was competitive. She has been using, is playing basketball at really national level. And she was, she was pushing us a, a little bit and I was there with, with my then director of Philip Cornes, who was still director at, at the European Commission. And she was asking us as, do you know Isak Asimov? And we were looking in each other's eye. And Philip, do you know? No, I dunno. I dunno. I dunno. Who's that? And yeah, of course we had been reading our own books on, on robots and so on youth books. But she was fascinated by, by the robotics and the three laws of robotics of Isak Asimov. And that was her view. That was her view. Build the systems that will support large scale drone operations. And from day one, we had to conceive the, the, the, the term use space was coined later in, in November, 2016. But use space was branded differently from UTM because from the beginning she wanted to move away from un crude. Because at the end of the day, view space can cater, it's all about automation and eventually it'll manage both crude and UNC crude traffic. So from day one, we had that. While you in us, you were focusing on UTM below 500 feet and small U and now you have to do something else for a m. And this makes you can progress easier, but because you kept your system easier and requirement easiest. We are struggling. Luka, we are struggling, but we are struggling because we are dealing with a system which is able to manage much more complex systems too. And that's why, for instance, the certification process is much, much heavier than just, a confirmation process that you have in in the us. So you see. Jim, we did not change that. WW we, we from the commission. We had to come from the beginning with an overarching policy line on how to manage the drones and how to, to create this digital aviation world.

Jim

Great. Thank you for that. Kun.

Koen

Is that, is that the answer that you expected?

Jim

Oh, that's a good question. No, I would've expected, based on your conversation with I would've expected that the definition would've changed over the last couple of years. So I'm glad I asked. That was good.

Koen

Yeah, but Jim, let me correct you a, let me correct myself. The notion and the rules as such have not changed. What we need to change is a way to implement it. Exactly. And if I criticize as ex regulator, my, my own rules, it is that we were not able to keep it really operation centric. And we have conce, we have been conceiving one single system for whatever operations would be managed. I think if, if you have to manage the operations of of, of 100 different operators, that is a completely different situation as, for instance, the Wing or Amazon or Zipline situation where you know your drones, you know, your operations and only that, those operations you have to manage in your UTM system. Yes.

Willingness to pay for UTM

Jim

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Koen

Again, that has not changed. That has not

Jim

Then let me ask a follow up then.

Koen

Yeah.

Jim

Did you see providing UTM services a business opportunity four and a half years ago for companies?

Koen

Four years and a half, you know, Jim. Then I started my job in Gutman, and the first thing that we do was, that we did was we had to change from UTM to, to representing the whole drone ecosystem because UTM as such, it is, if you see this world of Vertical integration, I don't think that UTM alone is a sustainable business and that you have to integrate vertically or horizontally. In my humble view, if you see that in a digital world, is digital services and open source evolution and so on, knowing the regulations, knowing the standards, knowing the flow of data that, that, that you have to manage. This can be done through open source. And I hope that one day bigger companies will be able to automate their drone operations and automate themselves their UTM service and vertically create, integrate everything I I I see in in the, in, in the future. That for instance, a company like, which is busy, which is a quite a big port client in in Entro Bay, ISF, everybody knows Bay SF they have to inspect their, their pipelines in order to, to inspect for metal leak leakage. If I was B, SF, I would like to keep these, these capabilities under my own responsibility without a third party knowing exactly where I'm flying because I could be suspected from, oh BSF has got a metal leakage. No, I can do it myself. And this would be an investment that I would be willing to make against reputational damage and, and against whatever the cost. And, and that should become valid for many more companies seeing the, the general tendency do its digitalization. If they have digital twin, for instance, of all their pipelines and tubes and so on, and they, they, they know how to manage and they know the weak points and they know on what frequency basis they have to make these inspections. Let them do it themselves through the

Jim

Very good Kun. So what you're largely saying then, don't let me put words in your mouth. what you're largely saying is there isn't necessarily a UTM market for dedicated UTM companies. It's more, it will more be a vertically integrated capability with those operating this space.

Koen

Yes. I'm, I, I sometimes compare it with, with, the, the piccolos, handling the levers for the, the elevators. You know that in, in rural times you had people handling those levers, but then these, these functions were automated and now we are pushing ourselves just a button

Jim

So if you are, if you are one of the companies then who have seen UTM as a business opportunity over the last 10 years, how should they transition? Based on the comments you're saying?

Koen

Integrate. And if you look at the, the, the companies, if, if coming back for instance now to, to our board members, Amazon export member or or Wing, they just vertically integrate

Jim

Yeah. Yeah.

Koen

where they get the money from Tim, they, they are looking themselves still. I don't think they, they count to, to have to, to gain fortunes from UTM nor from drone operations. It's the, the logical, the last mile and, and being a big data company also will gain.

Jim

You see it as a vertically integrated capability. Luka and Peter? Are you surprised by this at all? Are you surprised that there's probably not a market in UTM where Koen sees that as a, a vertically integrated capability as some of our guests have said as well?

Peter

I mean, I, I would say six or seven years ago, I was asking that question of who is the customer that's paying for this service and who is receiving that money, and what role does the regulator have in deciding who gets to provide the service and is it gonna be monopolized or regional or federated? All those were open questions six or seven years ago for sure. And since then I haven't really seen anything that builds the business case for how UTM is a standalone business. And if anything, what we've seen is that the. Operators that have built the real world flying experience, in particular, the drone delivery guys have, either built it in-house or effectively taken it in-house by partnering with some of the, you know, the remaining UTM software companies that are out there. But none of that builds a case for me as to how Oh, yeah. UUTM as a service is a standalone business. I think it is a system that is built into a scaled up, sophisticated, profitable operator, but that's the only place where it sits.

Jim

Yeah. Vertically integrated. Yep. Yep.

Koen

That's lightly said. And, and, and that's why we have to learn to think in terms of digital aviation, where we have to think in terms of systems. And that is a system that you apply, you apply the four, six services, whatever, but one of the board members of Goodway is also open UTM. And you can buy, or you, you, you don't have to buy it. You can use it for free. You can use it for free. The, the, the sources. And you have to that in, in a box. Of course, aqua a quality company who's able to manage those data. It, it remains safety critical. That that's for sure. And it's, it's all sold cyber secure and so on. In a digital world, safety and, and security should be treated equal, equal footing. But there is no separate business case for ut m as such core business case as it, you can expand horizontally lot like Andre is doing. Yeah. Fleet management or whatever. And vertically and, and I believe in, in the drone service at the end of the day. And, and, and coming back to the stories of, of Viola Bulls, the second message that she conveyed in, in the second, meeting that we met was, don't focus on operations. Focus on services. And again, Philip, my director, and I was looking in, in our eyes and what does she mean? But she was right. She was fully right, already focused. What do you, what are you enabling with these things? What value are you creating? And by letting fly a drone, you don't create any value at all as such. Voila.

Jim

Very good.

Koen

Next question. Thank you Peter, for, for repeating that. this is my conviction and, but, but Peter, there are still many people in aviation who see that as a self-standing issue. And, and, and that's why it drives me sometimes crazy where you see NSPs willing to keep and build a digital monopoly and that's supported in, in, in, by Cesar projects and, and, and, and preach as EU best practices, they create a digital monopoly. And coming back to, to your very first question, where do you feel alone, I'm sometimes I have the depression that I'm, I'm the only one who sees these things going, coming and, and, and it's, it's, it's noise. It's already, look, I to come back to your questions, it's already so difficult and complex to build all this drone ecosystem, but you hear so much noise. That should be filtered out and focus. What are the real green sprouts that, that you see popping up and build on these?

Jim

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Koen

a big fan of noise canceling,

Jim

I'm guessing, that members of GMA would be, there would be some who would take objection to some of your claims as to the business opportunity, wouldn't they?

Koen

but who knows, Jim, who knows? Nobody knows? Nobody knows. It is, we all discuss and it's up to them to, to, to, through critical discussion and, and find a business case. And, and Amit was one of, of our, has been board member for years and I've been saying that already from the beginning. Well, we was thinking through the value chain and he is taking note of that. And his service as a certified USSP that has value, but he knows that he has to build wider horizontal services, which are not regulated such, but create value fleet management, I dunno. And, and having to use electric drones, battery management and so on. It, it becomes more and more integrated in my humble view again.

Luka

And now we're introducing a new segment, a quick q and a with our sponsor, sky Grid on the digital infrastructure required to scale autonomous operations.

Jim

What are some critical technical and regulatory gaps in digital infrastructure as advanced inter mobility and UAS scale?

Brenden

So I would highlight I think, three main gaps, surveillance, standardization, and certification. Firstly with surveillance and data fusion at low altitude is really necessary to ensure reliable, low latency fusion of cooperative and non-cooperative tracks, which is incomplete in many regions, you know, across the, the country and globally today. Uh, secondly, uh, interoperability standards will allow for the kind of integration required to enable pre-flight and in-flight deconfliction intent exchange and constraint publication. But we. Really need globally harmonized, machine readable standards to achieve this. So finally, certification pathways, uh, you know, we need mature, predictable approval paths for ground-based digital services and not just for the aircraft and the operators. So again, coming back to, standards that are being explored introduced today through part 1 46, as well as those being developed by A STM and IKO as well for harmonization. We've certified airplanes, you know, for, for more than a century now. And moving forward, we need to start certifying the digital aerospace. They fly in in order to really, realize the next generation of aviation that we envision through a a m.

Jim

What are the biggest technological enablers to safely scale advanced air mobility and drone operations in shared airspace?

Brenden

You know, I think it ultimately comes down to connection, coordination, and certification. So connectivity, it really means resilient c two and data link exchange intent, constraints and advisories in real time. While coordination through automation means strategic deconfliction, schedule synchronization and cooperative separation that supports tactical conflict management through highly assured and certified services, and not just the ad hoc apps. So regarding technology specifically, we need low altitude surveillance fusion and micro weather nowcast feeds integrated into the planning and execution of operations if we were looking to achieve scale. So I think this requires assured software solutions with continuous compliance, cyber resilience, and performance monitoring with clear service level agreements. At the end of the day, autonomy in the aircraft only works when it is paired with autonomy in the airspace as well.

Luka

if Europe were starting from scratch today, knowing what we know now, would you design the use space the same way?

Koen

I thank you for the question I've been thinking about about this every, every single day. And then the question is, what would I change? And, and I think we have to think in layers. What would we change is not so much the rules as such. It is the underlying, acceptable means of compliance and guidance where we should learn from others and not always by default. Going for the most strict, safest mode and, and building more operation center elements are a, I think you should make a difference between the UTM providers who are just providing those use based services for their own fleet.'cause then the, the operations are known, the aircraft are known then UTM providers who want to build a UTM business and have to provide those services for, for thousands other, other operators. With unknown, operations and unknown destination and so on and unknown, maintenance, battery maintenance. So, so I, I would change at lower level and as such, I, I think it still fits. The European needs to come up and build a strong, seamless European market, and I hope that in the coming months you see much more political will to just do it because the political balancing between the safety risk to the political risks of doing nothing and, and hesitating the, the equation has changed dramatically. And we'll push for that as Goodman and as EXCOM official, we will push for that. And, I hope that in the coming months you will see that. There is also, look, there is also a growing frustration of, of some member states who really want to go forward and they don't receive sufficient support from a a from Cesar for, from Brussels. They see it. What is all that, that, that pollution, that noise pollution from, from people who have a strange interpretation of, of the use based regulation that should be canceled out. So. Again, maybe I'm stubborn, maybe I'm completely wrong, but we are not so wrong with a, with the four sources and the whole idea and, and I, I really think that, okay, if we could alleviate a little bit the certification requirements, if we can just get it done. but the difficulty is that you start with mentioning the, the air risk assessment. The air risk assessment is very complex and everybody complains. But the, the complexity is not in the rules as such. That is at the lower level of accepting means of compliance. And that can, that can be amended if a member states just decide, I do it differently. And, and they have a way of justifying it. They can do, you cannot change the rule. You cannot change use based regulation as such, but you can go for another acceptable means of compliance. It is, you are burdened with burden of proof. That is the big differe. But if some, some member states, if they put themselves together and they form some critical mass and they just say, we do it this way, we don't follow the, the acceptor means of compliance established by asa, they are entitled to do so. They, they are entitled to do so.

Jim

before I ask you about gma, are there any other questions we should ask on the current topic that you would like to address?

GUTMA overview

Koen

Yeah. I wanted to offer you whatever. You want to hear from the European story and compare that, that with the US you already said Luka. we always compare that. I think it might be interesting for, for, for your audience, and, and I think Ali, the main take is institutional differences, drive differences in UTM concepts and, and and, and use base differences. I think. And we are, we have a market of, we are continent of 27 different markets. If we don't have strong European rules, we have 27 fragmented markets. And you cannot build a business case for digital markets, for digital services on the base of 27 fragmented market. You can't, you can't, you can't. Why is Wing interested in coming to Switzerland? Not for the Swiss mountains, but because it is a foothold into the European market where they should be able to enter seamlessly. That is the logic behind it. The logic of adopting common rules then have mutual recognition, and then you enter the European market. As such,

Jim

Kun, tell us a little bit about gut. what's its role and, what value does it provide? I.

Koen

GMA is a unique association to the extent that it is not a standard lobbying association. Defending the interest of a particular stakeholder. It is an association that wants to build to build the ecosystem. We start with UTM because we thought this is a pinnacle, and underneath the ecosystem will develop automatically. And as we then saw that UUTM would be vertically or horizontally integrated, we, we saw the need to expand and, and start defending the establishment of the whole drone ecosystem as such. And that's why we not only have members of companies very active in the drone ecosystem as such, but we also have members of regulators. We have regulators as members, we have the Swiss Foca as member, we have the Israeli CEA as member, and we have the FEA as a member. So for them. Also it is a good occasion to exchange internationally with, with, with colleagues, but also speak with a non-US industry public. And to that extent, we are unique as such. And, and that's why we also are recognized by aasa. We are recognized by the FAA. We are also recognized at IKO level, where we also are a specific stakeholder and we are contributing to the advanced air mobility study group. And, and, and, and maybe one day, Jim, we might swap and become a standard association defending the interest of a particular niche in the market. But now we are still focused on building the market. That's a reason why we are very open. We have membership from all sides, including from telecom operators because yeah, connectivity is part of digital aviation. Connectivity is, is a structure element. We have a special relation with the GSMA, with which we develop also the, the link between aviation and telecom. What is a quality that you need to have aviation grade connectivity. That is a specific role that Goodman is, is playing in the setting up and, and building of, of the drone ecosystem. And we want to do that at the global level. Global level. Yeah. We have members from China, Australia, Japan, Europe, us, whatever. The only continents that are missing is Africa and Latin America, where we try to also get a foot on, on the ground.

Jim

What, what outcomes would you say Gutah will facilitate in the next couple of years that wouldn't have existed without

Koen

We try to focus on very concrete contributions to build this ecosystem. For instance, we know that when the use space regulation was adopted, we had already the 35, 48 on on interoperability and strategic conflict. But you must know a standard is and means to demonstrate that you comply with the requirement, but you first have to check whether all the details of the requirements are actually met. If you apply the standard, this mapping we have done in setting up the whole ecosystem, you need. A contract between the colleagues, the UTM service providers, the U space service providers, you need a multilateral contract. Otherwise, it's, it's nice that we have to work together in a market. But Jim, if you sent too late or too often corrupt data, and I have to take that and, and, and you bother my operations, then I will, I, I want to have an email address in which I can complain. Hey, Jim, be sure. Be sure that you send next time your, your data in your time. Such a practical things there. We created a multilateral agreement, governance and data exchange so that the market can function better. And that agreement has been used by the FE and is in use by the FEA and industry partner in Dallas, the FEA. So also the link between the operator and the UTM provider, where some are vertically integrated, but some are not. Andra is not, and they are dealing with mana. As a regulator, you want to know exactly who is responsible, which task to know who's liable. So we came up at the request of FEA with such an SLA between operator and UTM provider. These are the things that we see Goodman doing in the next times. we see, for instance, aviation is so focused on safety, but, but they are forgetting a little bit on cyber. We think cyber is should be treated equal footing. We already delivered a very concrete and simple list of things that a cybersecurity system should, should comply with, and that list already has been used by AASA in the certification process of Andra. And we are now talking about establishing a follow up on that to give a little bit more meat on, on the cybersecurity requirements. You see every time where there, where there is some, some, some concrete element missing in to establish the ecosystem, we try to fill the gap. And I think for instance, when we learn more from, from ish and use space aerospace creation, if there are missing links, we'll try to fill the gaps. For instance, if there is a need for UTM to communicate better with stronger, more of robust protocols with ATM, we will come up and we will create those protocols. And the other thing is we don't want to learn to, to, to remain active in the technical field, also in the economic field. These are one of the things that, that we, we try to, to better understand the, the, the value chain. Happy Peter, who, who will make a sustained business from UTM alone. And we saw, okay, now underneath you have the operations big, operation market, which also will become automated. So, so where will the value be created and who will be your end customer? And that's a big thing which, which, which I with concerned with. If you see some niches of digital monopolies being created, you can, you can piggyback not only on the value of the UTM service, not only on the value of the operation service, but also on the drone service. I already mentioned when BSF is, is willing at the drone service there, the inspection of, of all the tubes and, and, and, and methane leaks and so on, that has value. If there's, if this digital monopolist also can suck away part of this big value, he can suck away value of the whole economy. And this, again, come back to your very first question, where do you feel standing alone, Kun, I see that as, as a big concern, but I'm, there are not so many who are so concerned as I am

Jim

Terrific. Love your enthusiasm, Leslie, your experience. Good to hear about Guttman, what you're doing as well. Thank you, Kun. Thanks for a great conversation.

Koen

It was my pleasure.