EU-wide Advantages & Opportunities for “Fast-track Enabling Innovative Air Mobility / VCA Operations” (HORIZON-SESAR-2025-DES-IR-02-WA6-3)

1. Single Market Access

• Immediate pathway to a 450 + million-person customer base for passenger, cargo and emergency VCA services.

• Harmonised EU VAT & customs rules for aircraft parts/software lower entry barriers and simplify scaling of vertiport networks across borders.

• Pan-European recognition of SESAR-validated operational concepts (TRL 6) accelerates commercial roll-out in multiple Member States without re-design.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Consortium building requirement fosters partnerships between OEMs, ANSPs, vertiport operators, research centres and cities in different countries – critical for validating concepts in varied terrain (Nordic winter IMC, Alpine terrain, MED congested TMAs, etc.).

• Access to SESAR JU’s Digital European Sky community (200 + organisations) for data sets, simulation platforms and lessons learnt from parallel projects (EUREKA, OPERA).

• Enables shared flight trials in cross-border corridors (e.g., FR–DE Upper Rhine region, Baltic U-space sandbox), evidencing interoperability of FF-ICE, CPDLC and U-space services.

3. Alignment with Flagship EU Policies

• Direct contribution to Green Deal & Sustainable and Smart Mobility Strategy: electric / hybrid VTOL reduce emissions and road congestion.

• Supports “Drone Strategy 2.0” objectives for safe, green, socially accepted IAM at scale by 2030.

• Advances Digital Europe & Europe’s Digital Decade by integrating SWIM, AI-based traffic prediction and CPDLC into low-altitude airspace.

• Complements Chips Act & Batteries Alliance through demand for resilient navigation chips and high-density energy systems.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• SESAR research outputs feed straight into EASA Special Condition VTOL, U-space Implementing Regulations 2021/664 & /665 and future Digital Flight Rules – creating a single certification & operational framework instead of 27 national ones.

• Early engagement with EASA means project results can shape AMC/GM, shortening later type-certification & vertiport approval time-lines by ~18-24 months.

• Joint development of FF-ICE-compatible flight plans for VFR/IFR VCA provides a uniform filing interface for operators Europe-wide.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• Leverages 40+ urban air mobility living labs (EU UAM Initiative Cities Community) for real-environment trials.

• Synergy with Clean Aviation, Clean Hydrogen & CINEA alternative fuel projects for integrated energy-management research.

• Direct route to standardisation bodies (EUROCAE WG-105, CEN/CENELEC TC 493) to turn project deliverables into European standards.

• Talent pipeline from leading universities (e.g., TUDelft, Politecnico di Milano, TU Munich) and joint doctoral networks funded by MSCA.

6. Funding Synergies & Blending

• Combining lump-sum SESAR funding with:

– Connecting Europe Facility (CEF-2) for vertiport infrastructure in TEN-T nodes.

– InvestEU & EIB “Cleaner Transport Facility” for scale-up loans once TRL 7-9.

– Regional ERDF/Just Transition funds to co-finance demonstrators in cohesion regions.

– ESA “Horizons” & IRIS² secure sat-com vouchers for resilient navigation.

• Shared cost & risk lowers per-partner R&D expenditure by 50-60 % versus stand-alone national projects.

7. Scale, Impact & First-Mover Advantage

• EU-level validation at TRL 6 allows immediate replication in >300 potential vertiport locations identified by EASA study, enabling a unified network from Lisbon to Helsinki.

• Establishes European industry leadership vs. US/Asian competitors by creating the world’s first continent-wide, digitally integrated IAM market.

• Enables European SMEs (software, cybersecurity, automation) to plug-and-play into a common architecture, multiplying job creation and export potential.

8. Concrete Actionable Opportunities for Proposers

• Demonstrate booking/release of contingency landing sites through cross-border FF-ICE trials (e.g., Milano–Lyon corridor) with two ANSPs.

• Develop AI-driven VFR traffic prediction service and integrate it into at least one ANSP’s FDPS to prove 15 % workload reduction.

• Pilot remote-pilot-in-command concept (1 operator : 2 VCAs) in partnership with EASA & EUROCONTROL NM network, collecting data to inform Digital Flight Rules.

• Validate ATOL resilience using Galileo HAS & EGNOS DFMC signals, showcasing EU GNSS autonomy.

• Produce a compliance roadmap mapping project outputs to SC-VTOL, IR 2021/664, AMC/GM and EUROCAE ED-286, streamlining certification for all consortium OEMs.

9. Strategic Value of Operating at EU Scale

• Only an EU-wide framework can guarantee seamless low-altitude corridors crossing 8+ national FIRs – essential for logistics, medical and passenger use-cases.

• Pooling of diverse geographical, meteorological and traffic scenarios generates robust datasets for AI/ML algorithms, unattainable at national scale.

• Coordinated public-communication and social-acceptance campaigns across EU cities build a common narrative, reducing NIMBY resistance.

• Drives convergence of national subsidy schemes (e.g., BEV charging grants, hydrogen valleys) around a single aerial-mobility roadmap, amplifying public investment impact.