A new economic layer is emerging in Asia, often called the low‑altitude economy, meaning business activities and public services operating in low airspace, along with the infrastructure needed for them.

There is no point for Estonia to compete with Asian countries in drone manufacturing volume. Our opportunity may instead lie in developing digital services needed for safe and automated drone use. Estonia's long‑term experience in spatial data and 3D city models provides a strong technological foundation for this.

China is building an industry out of low‑altitude airspace

China has made the low‑altitude economy a national economic policy area, covering drones, air taxis, logistics, agriculture, urban monitoring, rescue operations, and the necessary infrastructure. According to China's civil aviation authority, by the end of 2025 the country had nearly 3.3 million registered drones — 51 percent more than the year before. Low‑altitude traffic service stations were already operating in 23 provinces¹. In major Chinese cities, drones are used for delivering food and medical supplies, firefighting, urban monitoring, and maintaining public order.

Rapid growth has also brought stricter control: in 2026, mandatory drone registration and electronic identification requirements took effect, and conditions for airworthiness and operating permits for larger drones were clarified.

Japan uses drones to solve labor shortages

In Japan, drone adoption is accelerated by an aging population, labor shortages, mountainous terrain, and the difficulty of serving sparsely populated areas.

A framework created in 2022 allows compliant drones to fly beyond the pilot's line of sight even over populated areas. This enables inspection of power lines, railways, or coastlines without the pilot needing to follow the entire route.

Japan's next step is a national drone corridor system. A drone corridor is a digitally managed flight path with predefined routes, permitted altitudes, obstacles, network quality, possible landing sites, and safety requirements.

Technical specifications, guidelines, and a nationwide development map for the corridors were completed in 2025. Corridor management software was published as open source, and an official registration system is planned for 2026².

Drone logistics focus mainly on mountainous regions, small islands, and depopulating areas, where mail, medicines, and small parcels are delivered. Drones are also used in disaster zones. In agriculture, they are integrated with autonomous machinery, satellite data, and shared data platforms to reduce labor needs and improve precision.

Japan's experience shows that drone services are most likely to become permanent where they solve a clear and growing societal problem.

South Korea turns trials into standardized services

South Korea is expanding its drone industry through municipalities and standardized service models. Since 2019, drone delivery, rescue, monitoring, and other public services have been tested. In 2025, 26 municipalities participated.

In the national drone delivery program, services were launched in 2024 on 32 islands, 17 parks, and one port, with flight bases, delivery points, routes, ordering apps, and real‑time flight monitoring. In 2025, the service expanded to 166 areas. Korea is also testing medical logistics, safety monitoring, and transporting island‑produced goods to the mainland³.

Standardization is at the core of Korea's model. The state creates a unified safety and service model that different regions and companies can use. Drone delivery is becoming a practical service that people can order.

The country is also investing in the K‑UAM program. UAM (urban air mobility) refers to air taxis and other new aircraft used in and between cities. Although air taxi timelines have proven overly optimistic, the infrastructure created by the program enables smaller cargo and service drones.

Europe leads regulation, Asia leads implementation

Are Asian industrial countries far ahead of Europe in civilian drone use? Such a generalization would be misleading. The European Union has created one of the world's most comprehensive drone regulatory frameworks. The rules are based on flight risk rather than whether the drone is used for hobby or business.

Europe's strength also includes U‑space, whose legal framework has been in force since 2023. Essentially, it is a digital drone traffic management environment that allows filing flight plans, checking restrictions, issuing flight permissions, tracking drones, and avoiding conflicts with other aircraft.

SESAR — Single European Sky ATM Research — is Europe's joint air traffic modernization program. It has tested cooperation between drone service providers, integration of drones with conventional air traffic, medical logistics, and simultaneous beyond‑visual‑line‑of‑sight flights. Trials show that the technology can work in urban and cross‑border environments⁴.

Europe's bottleneck is slow and fragmented implementation, as decisions are made by member states. As a result, Europe has many successful pilot projects but fewer everyday services. Europe leads drone regulation; Asia leads drone deployment.

Estonia's opportunities

Estonia's strengths in the drone field include high‑quality spatial data, digital public services, a small and relatively manageable airspace, strong communications and cybersecurity competence, and the ability to integrate state and private‑sector information systems⁵.

We also have practical use cases. Islands are suitable for transporting medicines and small parcels. Power lines, railways, coastlines, and wind farms require regular inspection. Security agencies need rapidly collected spatial information. Estonia's variable and cold weather allows testing systems in conditions valuable for many foreign markets.

Currently, Estonia often treats drone flights as individual operations where the operator checks restrictions, requests permission, plans the route, and conducts the flight. In a service‑based world, much of this information exchange must happen automatically.

A flight‑planning system should be able to request up‑to‑date data on airspace restrictions, buildings and obstacles, terrain height, weather, and mobile network coverage. The system could evaluate the route, submit a permit request, and transmit drone identification data during the flight. Creating such a digital layer may be Estonia's opportunity.

I see Estonia's first step as creating two or three permanent drone corridors. One would serve logistics between islands and the mainland, another would support energy infrastructure inspection, and a third would handle coastal, forest, or rescue monitoring. A corridor must include reliable connectivity, spatial and weather data, agreed safety requirements, digital permitting, and shared infrastructure for multiple companies. Pilot projects for drone corridors are already underway in Estonia.

In parallel, public‑sector demand must be created. Multi‑year service contracts for detecting power line faults, assessing forest damage, or transporting lab samples and medicines would give the private sector reason to invest in automated solutions and create validated services in Estonia that could later be exported.

In the drone economy of the next decade, a significant part of the value will come from systems that allow drones to fly safely, with minimal human intervention, and legally. Estonia has succeeded before by turning a complex state process into a simple digital service. Opening our low‑altitude airspace to new services could be the next such field — but we must act much faster than we are now.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and X and never miss an update!