The 28th AIDAA Conference and the 10th CEAS Aerospace Europe Conference, held from 1 to 4 December 2025 in Turin at the Lingotto Congress Center, once again proved to be a key international forum for dialogue between industry, academia, and institutions on the most advanced topics in aerospace innovation. In this context, Milan Bergamo Airport took part by sharing its vision on Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and on the role airports can play in the development of the technologies that will shape air mobility in the coming years.
As part of the conference program—which also included the 9th Moon Village Workshop—a Special Session dedicated to CN-MOST Spoke 1 Air Mobility was held, during which the Italian Observatory on Sustainable Civil Aviation (IOSCA) presented its research activities. Within this framework, a study on the integration of cargo operations with UAS in a “one-to-many” (1:N) configuration was illustrated, a key topic for the evolution of air logistics in controlled airspace.
The project was presented by Davide Gabrielli, Operational Innovation Manager at Milan Bergamo Airport – SACBO S.p.A., together with Fabrizio Meroni (MOST), Giorgio Guglieri (Politecnico di Torino), and Jacopo De Gioia (TXT E-TECH / TXT Group). The initiative is part of IOSCA’s activities—an observatory promoted by MOST—and stems from collaboration between Poste Italiane, Milan Bergamo Airport, Politecnico di Torino, and TXT E-TECH, with the aim of creating common ground between research, industry, and institutions to accelerate safe, efficient, and sustainable air mobility solutions.
The study analyzes the feasibility of deploying cargo drone fleets managed by a single remote operator, overcoming the traditional “one-pilot-per-drone” model. This approach aligns with ENAC guidelines and opens up new operational paradigms supported by a next-generation Digital Ground Control Station. In particular, the ICARUS (Intelligent Control And Routing for Unmanned Systems) concept was presented: an integrated platform for UAS fleet management covering the entire operational cycle, from asset configuration to mission planning and pre-flight simulations, through real-time monitoring, emergency management, and post-mission analysis via telemetry-based dashboards and replays.
The presentation highlighted how Milan Bergamo Airport is working in a structured manner on the technical, regulatory, and operational challenges of integrating cargo drones into controlled airspace, expanding the role of the airport: not only as aviation infrastructure, but as an enabling space for the entire advanced air mobility ecosystem.
The study will provide an initial set of guidelines for integrating AAM into the airport’s 2029–2043 infrastructure, digital, and operational masterplan, assessing regulatory, technological, operational, and economic aspects. The analysis also takes into account local territorial specificities, from dense urban areas to connections with valleys and mountainous regions, with the aim of fostering new forms of connectivity for currently underserved or highly congested areas through innovative air logistics.
The project is based on five key enablers: U-space integration, Digital Twin technology, infrastructure adaptation, governance, and regulatory compliance. These elements strengthen Milan Bergamo Airport’s positioning as an innovation laboratory and a national benchmark in the development and testing of solutions that will support the regulatory and technological evolution of future air cargo.