FIA 2026: Honeywell Aerospace to Lead EU Initiative for Safe Integration of eVTOLs and Cargo Drones into European Airspace

Hon­ey­well Aero­space (Nas­daq: HONA) will lead a major Euro­pean ini­tia­tive to accel­er­ate the safe inte­gra­tion of pilot­ed eVTOLs and remote­ly oper­at­ed car­go drones into con­ti­nen­tal air­space. Award­ed under the Euro­pean Union’s SESAR Joint Under­tak­ing, Project VERTI‑GO posi­tions a Hon­ey­well Aero­space-led con­sor­tium at the cen­tre of Europe’s next phase of air­space mod­erni­sa­tion and advanced air mobil­i­ty devel­op­ment.

Led by Hon­ey­well Aero­space engi­neers in Brno, Czech Repub­lic, the 12-part­ner con­sor­tium brings togeth­er Europe’s lead­ing air nav­i­ga­tion providers, air­ports and tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies, with Ver­ti­cal Aero­space serv­ing as the pro­jec­t’s pilot­ed eVTOL demon­stra­tion part­ner and Odys Avi­a­tion serv­ing as the project’s remote­ly oper­at­ed car­go drone demon­stra­tion part­ner.

The Euro­pean Union Avi­a­tion Safe­ty Agency’s Inno­v­a­tive Air Mobil­i­ty frame­work is set to enable an ecosys­tem for the safe, inte­grat­ed use of pilot­ed eVTOL air­craft and remote­ly oper­at­ed drones in Europe, mov­ing them clos­er to becom­ing part of every­day life on the con­ti­nent.

“Inte­grat­ing new air­craft types into already busy air­space requires new pro­ce­dures, new lev­els of automa­tion and new ways of man­ag­ing traf­fic,” said Jolana Dvorská, senior tech­ni­cal man­ag­er at Hon­ey­well Aero­space. “The ques­tion is no longer whether these air­craft can fly and per­form, but how they can oper­ate safe­ly at large scale with­in Europe’s exist­ing air­space.”

The project will focus on two path­ways: one for eVTOL oper­a­tions with an onboard pilot and one for remote­ly oper­at­ed car­go drone oper­a­tions. Both project path­ways will con­duct sim­u­la­tions and demon­stra­tions in Euro­pean loca­tions. Pilot­ed eVTOL flights, to be con­duct­ed by Ver­ti­cal Aero­space in the south of Spain, will be mon­i­tored by avi­a­tion author­i­ties to help build trust for future oper­a­tions. For remote­ly oper­at­ed car­go drone oper­a­tions, the results of these sim­u­la­tions and demon­stra­tions aim to con­tribute to future stan­dards and reg­u­la­tions for oper­a­tions in Europe.

Key areas of project VERTI-GO include dig­i­tal flight plan­ning, ver­ti­ports and emer­gency land­ing site man­age­ment, as well as the use of automa­tion to sup­port eVTOL oper­a­tors and air traf­fic con­trollers. Sim­u­la­tions and demon­stra­tions will form the cen­tre­piece of the project, includ­ing flight demon­stra­tions using Ver­ti­cal Aero­space’s pro­to­type eVTOL between Mala­ga and Mar­bel­la in Spain, expect­ed to take place dur­ing 2028.

For pas­sen­gers, this would help to enable faster urban and region­al trav­el, sup­port addi­tion­al region­al routes through new con­nec­tions between cities, air­ports and sur­round­ing regions and enable smoother door-to-door jour­neys via future ver­ti­port net­works.

For remote­ly oper­at­ed trav­el, project VERTI-GO aims to enable SAIL-IV-cat­e­go­ry car­go drone oper­a­tions (a Euro­pean reg­u­la­to­ry cat­e­go­ry for more com­plex remote­ly oper­at­ed oper­a­tions) through real-world demon­stra­tions at select­ed Euro­pean loca­tions.

“Advanc­ing elec­tric avi­a­tion requires more than just an advanced air­craft. It requires an ecosys­tem of trust­ed part­ners work­ing togeth­er to enable safe, seam­less oper­a­tions in an increas­ing­ly com­plex air­space,” said Michael Cer­ven­ka, chief com­mer­cial and strat­e­gy offi­cer of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space. “Project VERTI-GO is Europe’s equiv­a­lent of the FAA’s eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram in the U.S., bring­ing togeth­er indus­try, reg­u­la­tors and air nav­i­ga­tion providers to devel­op that oper­a­tional frame­work. This kind of col­lab­o­ra­tion is essen­tial to build­ing con­fi­dence in the tech­nol­o­gy and accel­er­at­ing the indus­try’s path for­ward.”

“From day one, our mis­sion has been to build air­craft that meet the oper­a­tional demands and reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards emerg­ing across the Euro­pean Union. Project VERTI-GO rep­re­sents a major step for­ward for the entire advanced air mobil­i­ty ecosys­tem,” said James Dor­ris, founder and CEO at Odys Avi­a­tion. “We’re proud to help advance SAIL-IV unmanned oper­a­tions, demon­strat­ing how Laila, our hybrid UAV, can trans­form med­ical and off­shore logis­tics across the EU, while help­ing chart a clear, safe path toward ful­ly inte­grat­ed drone oper­a­tions in every­day life.”

Project part­ners include tech­nol­o­gy providers (Hon­ey­well Aero­space and Fre­quen­tis), plat­form man­u­fac­tur­ers (Ver­ti­cal Aero­space and Odys Avi­a­tion), air nav­i­ga­tion ser­vice providers (Air Nav­i­ga­tion Ser­vices of the Czech Repub­lic, NATS and ENAIRE), research insti­tu­tions (ITG and CRIDA), an air­port and ver­ti­port oper­a­tor (Aena), an elec­tric air­craft oper­a­tor (Aeros Elec­tric Air­lines) and an inter­gov­ern­men­tal organ­i­sa­tion (EUROCONTROL).

The SESAR Joint Under­tak­ing is an insti­tu­tion­alised Euro­pean part­ner­ship between pri­vate and pub­lic sec­tor part­ners co-fund­ed by the Euro­pean Union to accel­er­ate the deliv­ery of the Dig­i­tal Euro­pean Sky through research and inno­va­tion.

More infor­ma­tion about the VERTI-GO project is avail­able on the SESAR Joint Under­tak­ing web­site.