Swescan gets Sweden's first approval to fly docked drones without a pilot on site

Swedish drone services company Swescan says it is the first in Sweden to get regulatory approval for drone flights in which the remote pilot does not have to be at the flight location. The approval covers operations with DJI Dock systems, flying beyond visual line of sight under the control of pilots in control rooms in Helsingborg or Karlstad.

The approval lets Swescan install permanent drone docks at customer sites, from which drones fly scheduled inspection and survey missions, for example at power plants, paper mills and airports, without staff travelling to each flight.

Sweden has allowed such flights before, when Everdrone got permission for experimental flights in 2018. In October, a court ruled that the Swedish Transport Agency had unreasonably delayed Swescan's earlier applications to expand its authorisation, and it is unclear whether the new approval came from those applications.