The “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” executive order released by the White House on the 6th of June 2025 contains a very tight timeline – so tight that I qualified it as unrealistic in a previous opinion piece. Amongst other things, the executive order requests “A proposed rule enabling routine Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations for UAS for commercial and public safety purposes” in 30 days.
Two months after the release of the executive order, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy unveiled a new proposed rule – Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS). The fact that it took 60 days instead of 30 is not relevant and even if the rule was possibly close to being published anyway, as I discussed in my interview with Kraettli Epperson, Vigilant Aerospace Systems, the timeline is quick.
Not just BVLOS flights but “routine” BVLOS flights
Amit Ganjoo, the CEO of ANRA, the first company with an EASA certified UTM system, said: “This is the FAA’s most consequential step yet toward fully integrating drones into the national airspace. It replaces an ad hoc waiver system with a scalable, performance-based rule that supports everything from package delivery to public safety missions.”
To better understand the contents of the proposed rule and how it differs from the European regulatory framework, I discussed with Jesper Skou, the CEO and co-founder of Skypuzzler. The proposed rule is a massive document, over 700 pages touching different aspects, from drone manufacturing to “routine” BVLOS operations. The “routine” aspect of it is the most important part and is a key to unlocking the widespread use of drones. As Jesper underlined, “routine” means allowing simultaneous flights of several drones by multiple companies, and sharing the same airspace as manned traffic.
At the moment, BVLOS flights often require segregated airspace, with corridors used by only one drone at a given time. This is called “strategic deconflicting” and it strongly limits the number of possible flights and is a serious barrier to routine BVLOS operations. Jesper noted that the proposed rule mentions “deconfliction” 115 times, showing how important the topic is. Skypuzzler focuses exclusively on deconfliction algorithms which take into account many factors like priority given to certain drones, individual drone performance, and sustainability aspects by proposing the most efficient conflict solution. The Skypuzzler solution can be integrated in any Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) system and the company works with Thalès, Unifly, and other UTM system providers.
Routine BVLOS implies tactical deconfliction
The concept of routine BVLOS flights, with full airspace sharing implies tactical deconfliction. To put it simply, drone flights must be separated from each other on the basis of their present position and trajectory, without putting strong predefined constraints on timing, altitude. Let the drones take-off and solve the conflicts as they show-up.
This is easier said than done, especially when considering all that can go wrong: technical issues, bad weather, and very dense traffic at certain key places like airports or city centres. The European framework set by regulations 2019/946 and 2019/947 makes complex provisions for Common Information Service Providers (CISPs), potentially segregated U-Spaces, and U-Space Services Providers (USSPs) offering services to drone operators, theoretically making fully-automated BVLOS flights possible.
The path forward to fully-automated routine BVLOS flights
Jesper confirmed that fully-automated routine BVLOS flights remain the ultimate goal but he also insisted that despite the European framework being in place for years, the number of U-Spaces and certified USSPs is still very limited. In comparison, the proposed rule for the US is much simpler, with less roles and more responsibilities put on the companies operating drone flights.
In particular, he highlighted that the proposed rule requires two working positions: operations supervisor and flight coordinator. The operations supervisor would be responsible for overall safety, and the flight coordinator would intervene to ensure safe conditions, if necessary. Automated deconfliction is good but some special cases, unusual situations or technical failures, can still be better solved by humans.
Will this simpler approach really make routine BVLOS flights possible? Is having humans as part of the deconfliction the key to unleashing the drone economy? It is hard to say and I think we are not fully there yet. But if this rule makes more flights possible, it will also allow for a “learning-by-doing” approach which I think is the way to eventually reach fully-automated, routine BVLOS flights. Hopefully Europe will follow and adjust its regulatory framework making drone dominance truly global.
