Spain's State Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) has issued the country's first authorization for unmanned aircraft operations classified at SAIL III, clearing the way for drone-based delivery of non-dangerous goods over populated areas, the agency announced June 30.
The authorization was granted to CATUAV, a Barcelona-area drone operator, to fly RigiTech's Eiger 3 aircraft. The approval permits beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations, including the transport and delivery of cargo in populated zones, a step the agency described as advancing the deployment of drone-based logistics services in Spain.
CATUAV was founded in 2000 and is one of Europe's pioneering civil drone companies, today operating BCN Drone Center, one of the world's first dedicated UAS test sites. The company previously became the first in Spain to receive AESA's Light UAS Operator Certificate (LUC).
RigiTech, the manufacturer of the Eiger platform, is a Swiss aerial logistics company founded in 2018 that builds long-range delivery drones for BVLOS operations.
SAIL, or Specific Assurance and Integrity Level, is a risk classification framework used under the European Union's drone regulatory structure, Regulation (EU) 2019/947, to determine the safety requirements an operation must meet based on its complexity and risk profile. AESA said the authorization was issued under this framework and represents a more complex category of operation than previously approved in Spain.
According to AESA, the authorization reflects the technological and operational maturity of the country's UAS ecosystem and signals the potential for further development of aerial logistics applications. The agency said such operations would continue to be conducted under what it called the highest safety standards.
AESA framed the approval as part of a broader effort to support the drone sector's growth within a secure regulatory structure, stating it aims to facilitate the safe, orderly, and progressive integration of UAS operations into Spanish airspace.
The agency did not specify a timeline for when CATUAV's delivery operations using the Eiger 3 would begin, nor did it detail the specific populated areas where flights would be conducted. AESA's announcement did not include additional technical specifications of the authorization, such as flight corridors, cargo weight limits, or its duration.
The announcement follows AESA data published earlier this year indicating more than 150,000 UAS operators were registered with the agency in 2025, pointing to continued expansion of drone activity in the country.
The approval adds Spain to a small but growing list of European jurisdictions where regulators have authorized higher-risk, populated-area drone delivery operations under the EU's SAIL framework, as the bloc works to standardize rules for integrating unmanned aircraft into shared airspace alongside conventional aviation.
