Airspace Infrastructure and Regulatory Collaboration in the Skies We Share

If you go back several years, most of the focus in advanced air mobility (AAM) was on certification of the vehicles themselves. We were asking: how do you certify something that doesn’t look like a traditional fixed-wing aircraft or a helicopter? 

For decades, we’ve known how to certify Boeings, Gulfstreams, Bells, Robinsons. These new electric and hybrid-electric aircraft required regulators to think differently. I would say we’ve largely put that part behind us.

There are now clearer rules around how these vehicles will be certified and how they will operate. In the last couple of years, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued final rules around air taxi operations, and now there are also draft rules for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) drone operations. So, progress is happening. But now the focus shifts to infrastructure.

New Types of Airspace Users

When we say, “new users,” it can mean many things. I tend to break them into three categories.

First, you have low-altitude drones. These are your package delivery operators flying in neighborhoods. 

Second, you have AAM vehicles – the air taxis, and their operators that will initially integrate into the national airspace much like general aviation aircraft today. 

Third, you have heavier drones. Unlike backyard delivery drones, these are larger – sometimes the size of a car – moving cargo from the outskirts of a city into the city center or even between cities.

We already hear stories about aging air traffic infrastructure and shortages of controllers. None of these three types  of vechicles are operating at scale today. But as they begin to operate at higher tempo, the question becomes: can the infrastructure and processes we have in place today support that growth without compromising safety?

Infrastructure Is Becoming the Critical Path

Earlier, the emphasis was on certification rules because that was the unknown. Now that clearer rules exist, the conversation naturally moves to infrastructure. Infrastructure is not just physical landing sites. It is also the processes and digital systems that manage traffic.

For low-altitude drones, there has been significant work over the past several years around unmanned traffic management (UTM). NASA and the FAA have been working with the industry to define how smaller drones can operate autonomously within certain geofenced areas without requiring involvement from air traffic control (ATC).

Field trials are already happening across the country and globally. The idea is that these systems manage themselves digitally within defined boundaries, while remaining integrated with existing ATC to avoid conflicts.

As we move up in altitude to air taxis, the initial operations will integrate into the national airspace much like general aviation aircraft today. But as scale increases, we cannot rely solely on human-controlled voice communication at current levels.

There has to be evolution – more digital exchange, more data sharing and new frameworks like digital flight rules.

It is not about removing controllers. It is about shifting from purely active control to more active monitoring supported by digital systems.

Physical Infrastructure Is a Real Constraint

You can certify an aircraft, but that does not automatically mean you have places for it to operate. As AAM flights start to become more common, operations can leverage existing general aviation airports. The U.S. has thousands of them.

But the intended use cases go beyond airport-to-airport travel. The idea is to connect suburbs to downtown areas or enable point-to-point operations that will not touch an airport at all, and creating those sites is not simple.

It involves local governments, zoning approvals, community engagement and aviation certification processes. There’s physical infrastructure to install, digital connectivity to integrate and surrounding airspace to evaluate. Today, that part of the ecosystem is still developing.

Regulatory Harmonization Enables Scale

Another area that remains important is harmonization across regulatory bodies. It is critical that FAA and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) continue narrowing gaps so that operators can certify once and operate globally. That reduces duplication of effort and increases investor confidence.

In the U.S., I would say that several years ago the situation felt more uncertain. With recent activity from Congress and the FAA, there has been acceleration in rulemaking. But there are still areas where more clarity is needed, particularly around heavier drones and how they integrate into shared airspace at scale.

Infrastructure and regulatory frameworks have to move together. If one advances significantly faster than the other, progress will slow.

Scaling Requires Ecosystem Alignment

In this area, collaboration isn’t optional.

You need alignment from airframers, suppliers, regulators, legislators, infrastructure providers, digital service providers and local authorities. AAM is not something that can be solved by a company operating in a vacuum. It requires ecosystem coordination.

At Honeywell Aerospace, we provide systems that translate pilot input into aircraft motion – inceptors, flight controls, avionics, actuation. But we also work closely with regulators and newer entrants to support certification processes. Many of these companies are new to aviation and benefit from experience in navigating regulatory pathways. And beyond the hardware, we’re also part of the conversations shaping how this ecosystem develops.

If aircraft innovation accelerates but infrastructure planning lags, operations will still occur, except they’ll look more like demonstrations than scalable operations. You may see defined corridors, limited city pairs or exhibition-style services. But the broader economic impact will be delayed. 

The aircraft are progressing toward certification. The regulatory direction is clearer than it was several years ago.

The next phase requires ensuring that infrastructure, both physical and digital, keeps pace.

That includes modernizing traffic management systems, aligning international regulatory standards and engaging local communities where operations will occur. If the ecosystem moves in coordination, this can scale safely. But deliberate alignment across all participants in the system will determine the pace of infrastructure modernization and regulatory progress.