Drones/eVTOLs: Present and Future Opportunities for Startups with the Digital Catalonia Alliance

Cristina: Oh, it's a huge question, this one. And indeed, social acceptance is key for this industry to blossom and to be uptaken. 

So, in May 2021 the European Aviation Safety Agency published the results of the first study conducted in the European Union on urban air mobility, showing that the majority of the people questioned were very welcome to prospect services such as air taxis, air ambulances, drone deliveries for medical purposes, most of them.

Still, they did have some concerns throughout the potential issues, such as safety, security and noise, or even the impact on wildlife, of drones. The survey so far showed that 83% of the responders, more or less, had an initial positive attitude towards urban air mobility, of which 71 some percent, I think something like that, were almost ready to try the services already. 

So cases in the common interests of the responders were emergencies, medical transportation, or yeah, I think that they receive the strongest support from the public. And the results were homogenous across the various regions and cities where this survey was conducted.

And before that, in Catalonia, we were involved in a European project called Aerial Uptake with other European partners. And even though we had smaller samples of data, we got similar results compared to the study that the EASA published. The results of the European Union on urban air mobility were crucial for EASA as a regulator in order to publish the European Drones Strategy 2.0 that was published last year to ensure sustainability, social acceptance and affordability of those services among the population and to assess that they were not restricted to the wealthy field, let's say, in order to be socially accepted.

So, in addition, the drone sector should move to the circular economy models as expected from the European Commission point of view to cover the production of the aircraft, the batteries and the other electric components and ensure that they are being recycled correctly, to ensure that emissions are reduced to the minimum as well in order to be socially accepted.

Clara: So public perception is pretty much positive, and there are still some challenges, obviously, that need to be addressed.

Cristina: Sure. I mean, the drone sector is a growing market with a lot of potential. And I can provide you some recent figures that were published by Drone Industry Insights, which is a consultancy company. And they did publish a few weeks ago the last global market study. 

The drone sector is estimated to generate almost $34 billion in global revenue, this year in 2023, and it's estimated to be by 2030 over, I would say, $55 billion with a compound growth rate of 7%, more or less. And nowadays the drone market exceeds – the commercial one – exceeds the recreational by far. 

What about the trends? So globally, Dronelli’s last report concluded that the commercial drone market is led by Asia, thanks to China and Japan, basically, but the Middle East and Africa markets are expected to grow the fastest. So the timeline is not specified, but I assume that it refers to 2030, as I mentioned in the early figures. 

I'm afraid I do not have a forecast for the European or American market, but what I do have are some figures of the estimated drone market in Europe, which are expected to be around $8 billion this year in 2023. And according to the European drone strategy that was published one year ago, the drone service market in Europe could be by 2030 reaching the value of €14 billion with a compound growth rate of 12%, more or less, and to create 145,000 jobs in Europe only.

So, as mentioned, it's a growing sector with a lot of potential. We could dive more in the kind of jobs that can be created, or the other areas if you want. 

Clara: Yeah, definitely, what kind of jobs would be created in the future?

Cristina: So, most people may think that the drone industry is only for “techy people”, isn't it? But the reality is quite different, because just like any other company, they have to offer all sorts of jobs to cover the entire structure that they have. 

For instance the most common job opportunities may include software engineering or software development, data processing, DevOps operations, engineering, but there are still many other areas that need to be covered, such as marketing, sales, hardware engineering, manufacturing, design, supply chain, purchasing, training, human resources, legal, administrative, of course pilots.

But yeah, it's just to give you an idea of what the needs of job creation are in this sector because they are not only for those techy people, but for any other kind of jobs.

Cristina: Yeah, it's already happening. I mean, we have this drone community in Catalonia with an ecosystem that nowadays has roughly 170 entities related directly to, or indirectly to the drone sector. They do fly, there are drone services providers that are offering their services on a regular basis. And just to give you some figures on the Spanish level, according to the Spanish State Aviation Safety Agency, in 2014, there were only 54 drone operators in Spain, while in 2020, there were roughly 66,000 drone operators.

And recently, basically last year, AESA published the figure of the number of operators that we have currently, and it's over 70,000 drone operators, which is a huge development of the sector in the country. Catalonia is the third autonomous region, the third region in Spain with the largest number of registered drone operators. 

I have some figures as well on the number of flights. ENAIRE managed, last year, roughly 10,000 flight requests. And it was 70% more requests than in 2021. So it's a huge increase of the number of operations. 

There are estimated to be roughly 50,000 flights per year. And in 2021 Catalonia was the autonomous region with the most operations, it’s been estimated to be 2,500, I would say. So yeah, drones are flying and it's a growing sector with a huge potential.

And I only have this data on Spain because it's where we are focused today, but the figures are amazing. If they are that big in Spain, imagine the overall of Europe. So it's just amazing to get to see how this sector has evolved in the last years.

Clara: Yeah, those figures are really impressive.

Cristina: Well, I'm afraid that I'm not an expert on how to run a company. If I were, I would probably have established my own company a few years ago. Jokes apart I don't have a crystal ball to find the magic formula to make SMEs successful, but my piece of advice for those people and those entrepreneurs in this business is to identify their mission and their goals and to go for them with a strong team. I think that this is crucial.

Also differentiation, I think, is key in this sector. I usually recommend to new members of this community to make the best product solution or service possible and try to make it unique and differentiate it from the competitors.

And last but not least, I think that specialization is also important because at the very beginning, everybody wants to be providing solutions for all the sectors. And my advice is completely different. It's safe to focus on the sector that you prefer, that you know better, the one you have more expertise with or the one with more potential demand and just focus on developing the product, services, to ensure this customer satisfaction ultimately will be the one that will be making your company profitable.

I think that my piece of advice as well would be to identify clearly what is in the scope of the SME rather than the one that is not. Because if there's a gap in this, it can probably be filled by someone else. And for instance, this is what we are trying to do with our Digital Catalonia Alliance. We try to recommend to our members to create their own recommended network of collaborators and ask them for help.

It can be SMEs, it can be academia, public administration, whatever. The challenges may be logistic, for example, they can be technical, whatever, but for instance, clusters, such as the Digital Catalonia Alliance, or sectoral clusters, can support SMEs and entrepreneurs to find these networks. And from my side, I’m pleased to serve those entrepreneurs and businesses to consolidate.

Clara: Got it! So be unique, specialized, know your scope and look for help, from the associations such as the Digital Catalonia Alliance.

Cristina: Yeah, we have some examples in our region. The first example of success that we got so far in terms of international collaboration was an agreement between a Chinese company called CCIC Europe testing, and Barcelona Drone Center, which is a drone test site in Catalonia, and they signed a collaboration agreement back in November 2021 to perform a certification for Chinese manufacturers to commercialize their products in Europe according to the certifying regulation that we have. This was a pioneer agreement that represented a great opportunity to strengthen the relationship in a two-way trade between Catalonia, Europe and China.

In a growing sector, such as the drones and urban air mobility in general, we have other examples of international collaborations. It was a few months ago when Aeroports de Catalunya and the Chinese company EHang announced that they were establishing in Lleida-Alguaire airport the first remote control center of operations of EHang in Europe. And it was in Catalonia.

It was back on the 31st of October that EHang inaugurated their very first operation center for autonomous vehicles in Europe, and it's another interesting and promising collaboration among different regions. And in fact it's a world-leading initiative to improve the logistics and passenger transportation for this firm in unmanned aerial solutions for mobility.

And last but not least we have identified that in Europe there was a cluster created with a huge resemblance to the drone community of the Digital Catalonia Alliance because we were involved in a European project called Aerial Uptake with Poland, which is the initiative that promoted this opinion on the European drone strategy.

And in its action plan, Poland’s Podkarpackie region mentioned that they did learn a lot thanks to Aerial Uptake from Catalonia and our drone community, that they were trying to have the support to establish their own drone cluster in the region. And we found that this was created and it's the Drone Space Valley from Poland.

And I think this is a huge milestone and long-term achievement because we did this project back in 2019. So, really happy that now in 2023, we get to see this job that we have done and getting to see that we are inspiring other regions to implement their own practices.

Clara: Well, that sounds really promising.

Cristina: Well, the future is hard to predict and it can be unveiled very differently from what we aim, what we plan. But as mentioned, earlier this year the Digital Catalonia Alliance had the chance to express its thoughts and contribute to the deployment of the European Drone strategy.

A small group of experts from different regions in Europe were invited, including myself, to the European Committee of the regions. We did an assessment on the impact on how the European Drone Strategy would affect regions and contribute to the development.

Regarding the future, the European Drone Strategy lays out how Europe can pursue these large-scale commercial drone operations while offering these new opportunities in the sector. So we have these 19 flagship actions to achieve that, this tomorrow’s drone market. 

And the thing is, that local and regional authorities play a crucial role in the regional planning, in the creation of vertiports and development of the drone testing, the demonstration sites in regions and the promotion of citizens’ awareness towards social acceptance. 

So the feedback is key in order to develop this European Drone Strategy. So, back to the European Committee of the Regions and their opinion on drone strategy: in May, they organized this Territorial Impact Assessment Workshop and they have identified some positive effects of the drone regulation in the regions, in particular, in the cases that concern business development, research, innovation, reduction of pollution and the increased mobility of the population in general.

They have identified as well some concerns towards privacy for instance in cities or areas close to borders. This is another concern that can be identified.

And regarding research, I didn't mention that, but enabling technology such as artificial intelligence, robotics, telecommunications, cellular security or even countermeasures for drones are fitting this strategy. So I think it's really important. 

As mentioned, this opinion was voted in October, I would say. And this opinion stresses the importance of the drone sector in Europe, supports the actions that are envisioned by Europe, and puts another set of recommendations for its success, specifically to be carried out by the regions.

So, for instance, most of them are aligned with the insights that we and other experts provided in the Territorial Impact Assessment workshop. And I am delighted with how this opinion turned out and how we have the chance to contribute to it. And although the future is hard to predict I believe that in the next five years, we will get to see the industry blossom, to consolidate and to achieve the objectives set by 2030.

Clara: So we're all set to move towards a future with drones in our everyday life. Thank you for sharing all these insights with us, Cristina, this was really interesting.

Cristina: Well, thank you for inviting us. It's been a pleasure and hopefully we get to see you soon in another podcast.

Clara: Thank you for listening to Designing Impactful Innovation. To find out more, go to 3ds.com/cloud. Don't forget to subscribe for more insights and stories from our guest experts.