2025 Agenda

In this session, AirShare Product Manager George Ridd from Airways International will outline Airways’ journey to integrating drones and advanced uncrewed aircraft into the New Zealand aviation system, the challenges they’ve faced and the lessons learned along the way.

New Zealand has built a reputation as a global leader in the space and advanced aviation sector, thanks to a thriving tech and innovation sector, clear skies and low population, and a supportive regulatory regime. With global industry players such as Rocket Lab, Dawn Aerospace, Kea Aerospace and Wisk testing and launching their uncrewed aircraft in New Zealand – Airways and AirShare are supporting a hotbed of advanced aviation activity in NZ airspace to ensure safe skies for all participants.

From Airways’ award-winning partnership with Wisk to trial the integration of Wisk’s uncrewed aircraft into unsegregated controlled airspace in New Zealand, to AirShare’s collaboration with Tāwhaki Joint Venture to facilitate uncrewed aircraft operations at the world-leading aerospace centre – in this session, George Ridd will provide valuable insights into the efforts of Airways and AirShare to support aerospace sector growth and enable the safe integration of new and existing aerospace technologies into the airspace system.

He will discuss AirShare’s integration into the control tower environment to help reduce workload for ATCs, and the UTM’s integration capabilities to enable a connected UTM ecosystem. George will also highlight Airways and AirShare’s efforts to ensure safe skies outside of controlled airspace, through the award-winning Flight Advisor tool, and the use of AirShare by New Zealand unattended aerodromes to safely manage uncrewed aircraft in their airspace and streamline their processes.

Don’t miss this informative session to understand Airways’ lessons learned during its journey supporting New Zealand’s burgeoning aerospace sector, and how the AirShare UTM system is evolving as a solution to address the airspace challenges of the future.