The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has proposed rules for safe operations of Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft (VTOL), which includes air taxis, which it says pave the way for these innovative aircraft to take to the skies in Europe’s cities. The Opinion will go forwards to the European Commission for its consideration before being put to the European Parliament to be enacted into law. While the process of enactment may still have some time to run, it is unlikely that a technical document like this will be subject to much political tinkering before it enters into EASA’s Annexes. As a result, developers and operators will have a clear idea of the operating environment that they will face within the Agency’s jurisdiction as well as the UK, which post-Brexit aligns its Air Navigation Orders (ANO) with those of EASA.
“I am happy to release this Opinion to the European Commission, which is once again the first proposal on this topic to be issued worldwide. With this, we will achieve a harmonised regulatory framework to ensure the safe, sustainable and secure introduction of VTOL operations,” said EASA Executive Director Patrick Ky. “This is the last piece of regulation required to enable the launch of VTOL and air taxi services for Innovative Air Mobility,” Ky added. “Once this has passed into law, individual manufacturers and operators will, of course, need to obtain all the required approvals from various authorities, but the framework rules for these operations will be complete.”
The Opinion introduces a comprehensive set of operational requirements for piloted electric air taxis, spanning the domains of operations, flight crew licensing, rules of the air and air traffic management. The proposed regulations also establish criteria and processes for the certification and maintenance of drones.
Once adopted, this Opinion will complement existing EU regulations and guidance material for unmanned aircraft operations, specifications for vertiport design, unmanned traffic management (known in Europe as U-space), and the certification of VTOL-capable aircraft.
You can find the full Opinion by clicking HERE
