ENAIRE launches a video tutorial to let users plan their drone flights

ENAIRE, the national air navigation service provider, has launched a video tutorial to make it easier for users to plan drone flights. The video offers a practical and informative explanation of how to plan these flights with ENAIRE through the ENAIRE Planea app.

This audiovisual tool provides a practical and intuitive guide created for the needs of drone users that conforms with regulations

ENAIRE Planea is ENAIRE's official application for managing requests for aerial work, experimental flights and special activities for manned aviation, drones and other airspace uses, including new high-altitude operations (HAO).

The address of the ENAIRE Planea website is: https://planea.enaire.es.

The video explains, step by step, everything users need to register in ENAIRE Planea, and it details how to specify the characteristics of the flight operation or air activity in question, both with manned aircraft and drones, experimental rocket launches, stratospheric balloons, and activities such as aerial sports, fireworks shows, lanterns and advertising balloons; the length of time and the airspace volume requested.

The video is available in this link.

If you have any questions about ENAIRE Planea, please contact coop.consultas@enaire.es.

ENAIRE has also offered another tool since 2018 called ENAIRE Drones, which ENAIRE has used ever since to make available to drone pilots the information they need to safely plan their flights.

ENAIRE Drones has had over 7 million visits in its history, receiving nearly 200,000 monthly consultations in six years. Users of ENAIRE Drones can check geographic areas for drones by filtering these areas by flight level.

ENAIRE coordinates drone operations

ENAIRE managed the first civil drone flight in 2014 and, in 2017, it created the Drone Business Development Unit.

In 2024, through July, ENAIRE coordinated some 6,500 individual drone operations. May was the busiest month in ENAIRE's entire history, with 1,300 drone operations managed.

In Spain as a whole, it is estimated that about 34,500 operations have been flown, although thanks to ENAIRE's processes, around 28,000 administrative interactions have been avoided in 2024.

ENAIRE expands its activity

ENAIRE is going to expand its current functions with a new business area with a high growth capacity: the coordination of air mobility by means of air taxis, drone parcel deliveries and traditional flights. ENAIRE will play a crucial role as the provider of common information services, and relay operational data between conventional air traffic service providers (aeroplanes) and U-space service providers (drones).

This was decreed by the Council of Ministers, which approved a new regulation on 4 June 2024 to boost the drone sector in Spain (Royal Decree 517/2024), published the following day in the Official State Gazette.

This new Royal Decree also designates ENAIRE as the entity responsible for making available, in a common digital format, information on the geographical areas for drones identified in sovereign Spanish territory and airspace. This is a significant recognition of the work carried out over the last ten years by the national air navigation service provider, and a significant future challenge in this fast-growing sector.

About ENAIRE

ENAIRE is the air navigation service provider in Spain.

As a company of the Ministry of Sustainable Transport and Mobility, it provides en route control services for all flights and overflights from five control centres in Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Gran Canaria and Palma, as well as approach services to every airport in the country.

In addition, 46 airports receive communication, navigation and surveillance services from ENAIRE, which also maintains their air traffic control systems, and 21 of them, including the country's busiest airports, rely on its aerodrome air traffic control services.

ENAIRE is Europe's fourth largest air traffic manager and participates in the A6 Alliance, a coalition of air navigation providers responsible for over 80% of European air traffic, and which is seeking to modernise the air traffic management system. It is also a member of other international alliances promoting the Single European sky, such as SESAR Joint Undertaking, SESAR Deployment Manager, iTEC, CANSO and ICAO.

ENAIRE, as the responsible agency identified by the Ministry of Sustainable Transport and Mobility to implement the U-Space system in Spain, will, through its digital platform, provide the Common Information Services (CIS), which are essential to facilitate U-space services to drones and Urban Air Mobility in cooperation with local air traffic services, so that all types of aircraft can fly safely in the same airspace.

ENAIRE has received the highest score in Europe on the aviation safety key performance indicator for four years in a row. It has also been awarded the EFQM 600 Seal for its safe, efficient, innovative and sustainable management of air navigation services.