Cargo drones and aero taxis, boom in Italy in the next five years

The remote-controlled aircraft sector in Italy is more alive than ever. This is also borne out by the 'major events' dedicated to the subject, such as the recent Rome Drone Conference, which took stock of the market for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) and Innovative Air Mobility (IAM), or the next edition of Dronitaly scheduled for next March in Bologna, whose key topics include the use of professional drones for civil use in certain vertical sectors (logistics, surveillance, agriculture, and shipbuilding). Precisely on the occasion of the Rome event in early November, a study by PwC Strategy & Italy was presented that estimates the Advanced Air Mobility market as a whole - including consumer and professional devices, software, infrastructures, and R&D investments - at 597 million euro, compared to 503 million in 2024, hypothesising further growth to 1.46 billion euro in 2030 (with a compound annual rate of 19%). Growth is generalised across segments, with passenger transport having the most significant dynamic, with an estimated turnover of 366 million in five years' time, compared to the 37 million (all infrastructure-related) forecast for 2025.

Supporting this boom will be the entry into service of electric aircraft with vertical take-off and landing (the so-called eVTOLs, Vertical Take-Off and Landing) and the gradual implementation of infrastructure networks for air taxis planned over the next two years along the main metropolitan and airport-city routes, particularly in Rome, Milan and Venice. Freight transport is also running at a fast pace, which is expected to climb beyond the 284 million forecast by 2030 compared to the current 84 million, driven by the initiatives of national and international players (see Amazon Prime Air) and the presence of public companies.

Finally, interesting numbers (extracted from another study by PwC & Strategy) are those of marine and underwater drones, whose leap forward (from 94 and 217 million euro) will more than double in the period considered, thanks to the growing influence (in the form of calls for tenders for research and development projects on strategic underwater robotics technologies) of the National Underwater Dimension Pole and initiatives involving large players, SMEs and university spin-offs. A driver segment for the development of drones in Italy, beyond the figures involved, is the health sector for the transport of drugs, vaccines and biomedical products, which is recording the multiplication of experimental flights aimed at verifying the possibility of rapidly connecting hospitals and medical facilities in isolated locations in the event of an emergency.

The tests that indicate the great fervour around drones for civil and professional use are many. In Abruzzo, in addition to Amazon Prime Air's experiments for transporting goods, a demonstration delivery of urgent medicines from Avezzano hospital to the pharmacy in Collelongo, a small village at an altitude of 900 metres, was successfully completed. The province of Chieti also hosted Europe's first U-space, and thus services to regulate the safe access of drones in airspace. In Veneto, a field trial of hydrogen drones is taking place at Padua airport and medical facilities in the area, while other experiments are underway in southern Italy (between Naples and Procida, for example, drones have flown in to deliver mail). Finally, nine Italian cities have announced their intention to build a vertiport. All this is in the groove traced by Enac with the Innovative Air Mobility rules and the launch, a year ago under the aegis of the same Enac and the Department for Digital Transformation, of the HyperTwin platform, created to simplify the operational management of drones.

Gabriele Capomasi, head of research at PwC Strategy & Italia for the Italian Uas/Iam market, framed the projects underway as 'coherent' with the national strategic plan (which envisages 50 different applications), confirming how the positive trend reflects the fact that Italy is among the first countries to have followed the guidelines of the Eu Drone 2.0 Strategy. 'The market is growing strongly,' he explained to Il Sole 24 Ore, 'and companies such as Sea or Aeroporti di Roma are betting in this direction for vertiports; infrastructures are also being created and even public utility organisations such as 118 are experimenting with these technologies'. Also driving the sector, according to Capomasi, is the lowering of the cost of the technology, which is going to scale favouring the creation of business cases in various fields, from the monitoring of critical infrastructures to the aforementioned medicine delivery services. Another factor not to be overlooked is therefore the increased performance of the devices in terms of speed, thermal management and autonomy, and their ability to perform multiple tasks, factors that open up the paradigm of the 'drone as a service' (you buy the flight hours and not the aircraft) to overcome the constraint of obsolescence.