The scope of this solution is to develop a disruption and emergency management service for vertiport operations, dedicated to vertiport managers and U-space service providers (USSPs), in coordination with the air traffic control (ATC).

So far, crewed-VTOL-capable aircraft (VCA) contingency and emergency procedures mostly originate from traditional aviation and helicopter operations. They do not refer to vertiport operators, nor to USSPs. Similarly, the U-space regulatory framework does not explicitly address vertiport considerations in the case of emergency response. Therefore, the rationale of the solution is to adapt these provisions to vertiports and to validate an operational concept for managing disruptive situations, with both crewed-VCAs and unmanned aircraft system (UAS) traffic involved;

The solution’s targeted improvement will be to adapt aircraft and helicopter emergency procedures to an innovative air mobility (IAM) and U-space environment—leveraging several U-space services:

• On emergency management: the solution will consider the situation in which contingency/emergency is triggered by the information from a known flight whose conditions have changed, and will apply it to U-space, with a UAS operator experiencing U-plan conformance issues. The solution will address the disruptive impact of this event on the overall vertiport traffic.
• On priority management: the situation of energy shortage, referred to in ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization), will be addressed by the solution but applied to crewed-VCAs. The solution will focus on the management of the resulting conflict-free priority (CFP) situation, which may include the possibility of a priority landing and/or a possible dynamic airspace reconfiguration (DAR) beforehand. The solution will address the DAR implementation’s disruptive impact on overall vertiport traffic.
• On airspace infringement management: the solution also addresses the risk of incursion into controlled traffic region (CTR), considering an adjacent U-space airspace, with a non-collaborative drone being detected in that volume. The solution will address the disruptive impact of such a non-collaborative drone situation on overall vertiport traffic.
• Standards/regulatory (STAND/REG) items or specific objectives on which the solution intends to provide input include:
  • U-space service surveillance
  • Harmonisation of ATM/UTM (air traffic management/unmanned traffic management) (EU) 2021/665
  • Analysis of U-space applicability for UAM/VTOL operations, possibly as an extension of 2021/664
  • UAM/VTOL operations: new rules regarding UAM/VTOL operations, possibly as an extension of 2021/664
  • Developing regulations for DAR, in the context of U-space and UAM (EU 2021/664)
  • Emergency response: communication and collaboration
  • Regarding procedures (Easy Access Rules (specific operations risk assessment (SORA)) for UAS operations): the SORA process could indirectly benefit from the vertiport and the U-space procedures for UAS that will be developed in the solution

BENEFITS

• Increased resilience to disruption (providing capability and operational procedures to lower safety and operational impact)
• Increased ATM human performance
• Increased vertiport operator (VO) human performance
• Increased U-space flexibility