Dronamics, the world’s leading middle-mile cargo drone developer and operator, has selected Malta as its first European operation base to provide same-day delivery service with the Black Swan drone in 2022.

Malta will serve as a starting point for the first commercial routes the company will offer, connecting the country via air first to mainland Italy, followed by other destinations in the Mediterranean and all of Europe.

“Malta is the perfect operational and strategic location for our first flights of the Black Swan. We aim to connect Malta first with Italy, where the Italian Civil Aviation Authority (ENAC) has established testbed airports for remotely pilot aircraft system trials,” Sergio Oliveira e Silva, chief operating officer of Dronamics, said.

“Transport Malta and the Civil Aviation Directorate have given us a clear path to establishing our first commercial routes, and we aim to do the first demonstration flights in 2022.”

Charles Pace, director gene­ral of Civil Aviation Directorate Transport Malta (TM-CAD), expressed his grati­tude towards Dronamics for the ongoing cooperation and added: “We are very proud of this milestone and are determined to continue into the UAV market. Special thanks to Neil Pavia and Analiza Abdilla from CAD who were the driving force on this and other UAV projects.”

Svilen Rangelov, CEO of Dronamics, said: “Malta has developed into a thriving hub with a strong aviation cluster that can support our expansion as the world’s cargo drone airline.

“We are very excited that Malta is going to be the first country in Europe that we will service, and its strategic position and great trade heri­tage make it the perfect location for our European base.”

Ruth Sawers, the newly appointed director of business operations Malta, has recently submitted Dronamics’ light UAS operator certificate (LUC) application to Transport Malta, represented by Pace and Abdilla, flight operations inspecting officer of the Civil Aviation Directorate.

The LUC is an organisational approval certificate that drone operators should obtain by the respective national aviation authority of registration to have operators assessed that they are capable of assessing the risk of flight operations themselves.

This is an important step towards the flight authorisation for the first flights with the full-scale Black Swan aircraft which are scheduled for 2022.

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