Drone flights under Spain’s Enaire air control watch up 70% in 2022

In yet another sign of the swiftly increasing use of UAVs around the globe, Spain’s national air traffic control company Enaire reports the number of drone flights it managed last year increased by a whopping 70% over 2021.

Enaire said its air traffic control system oversaw 10,325 drone flights as requested by operators in 2022, 673 of which took place in the last month of the year alone. It noted that only about 200 of those UAV sorties monitored by controllers in December came at the behest of police, emergency, or first responder units, suggesting the vast majority covered during the rest of the year were also the kinds of now routine enterprise activity fueling rapid drone operation in most nations around the world.

More broadly, Enaire said drone air traffic across Spain averaged at about 140 flights per day, or roughly 50,000 missions over the year. It noted the daily average in 2021 was 76 daily flights.

Relatively strict regulations in…