The night of July 8 to 9 will be remembered in the history of Malpensa Airport as the date of the first cargo drone takeoff. It was a relatively short flight, but it allowed its promoters—Sea Airport Company, Enav, and Techno Sky—to test the takeoff and landing of an unmanned aircraft. The star of the event was a Nimbus drone, which on this flight transported a light load for eight kilometers to the Barbarini & Foglia warehouse in the nearby municipality of Case Nuove.
This flight is part of the European U-Elcome (U-space European Common Deployment) project, coordinated by Eurocontrol and co-financed by the European Union through the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) program. In this project, Sea serves as the coordinator of the Milan Sandbox, a controlled test environment that allows for the experimentation of innovative regulatory and technological activities. The goal is to develop innovative solutions for cargo transportation via drones, contributing to the development of U-space services. These services aim to regulate the safe and efficient access of drones into the airspace, optimizing delivery times, reducing CO2 emissions, and promoting environmental sustainability.
This initial experiment was carried out with the collaboration of various entities: in addition to the aforementioned Enav and Techno Sky, D-flight, EuroUSC Italia, Telespazio, and Dronus also participated. Enac contributed with regulatory and authorization aspects. In 2024, more drone flights will take place at Malpensa, operated by Telespazio with Dronus, as part of the Italian Demonstrative Cluster coordinated by Enav. Among the first applications is the transportation of medicines, for which a memorandum of understanding has already been signed with local hospitals.
