Potential of United States and European Regional Air Cargo Operations for Uncrewed Aircraft Systems

Regional air cargo is a promising initial use case for Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) to address scalability challenges such as pilot shortage. This paper investigates current air cargo flight movements to assess the potential of using UAS for regional air cargo operations in the United States (US) and in Europe. Air cargo data from 2021 were analyzed to provide a baseline of where and how these operations occur today and hence for how the introduction of UAS may evolve and impact the airspace in the two regions. For example, the US operates significantly more air cargo flight movements than Europe, both in general and in regional markets. Cargo flight movements in the US tended to be shorter and conducted by smaller aircraft than those in Europe, which may provide an environment in the former that is more ready for one-to-one replacement of regional air cargo flight movements by cargo UAS. With the premise that regional cargo UAS will initially operate at smaller, under-utilized airports, many US states, such as Alaska and California, appear to be well-suited for this type of operation due to the prevalence of these small, under-utilized airports. Only a few European countries, notably Germany, have a significant number of small commercial airports.