LO
DeploymentProcess & self-service2022-02-04
The FAA says its automated system had granted one million drone airspace authorisations, work that used to be handled by hand, while showing air traffic staff where drones fly
Air traffic controlleroccupation page →
Event date / reported
2022-02-04
Evidence stage
DeploymentAn employer has put it into production. Can move the baseline — weighted by scale and how similar the setting is.
Tasks this bears on
Making room for traffic that has no pilot
Working out how uncrewed aircraft and new kinds of air vehicle share a sector with conventional traffic, and what you say to something that has no one aboard to say it to.
New task✓ Evidence-backed
Where this applies
United States. The regulator's own release says its Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability automates the process for drone pilots to gain authorisation and provides air traffic professionals with awareness of where drones may be operating; that before it, authorisations were done manually and could take weeks; and that since becoming an official programme in 2018 it covers 542 air traffic facilities serving about 735 airports. Requests outside the automatic limits are still coordinated by people. It gives no change in controllers' hours.
What this means
In US airspace, letting a drone into controlled airspace near an airport is routinely decided by a machine; people handle the requests outside its limits.
What it does not yet show
Drones under set altitude limits only; nothing on controller workload or on larger uncrewed aircraft.
What you can check
Open the FAA release 'FAA Reaches One Million Airspace Authorization for Drone Pilots' and find "Prior to LAANC, airspace authorizations were done manually".
Does it change the assessment?
No. The impact index is never moved by a single event. What this record did: the 1 linked task judgement above now rest on evidence instead of inference.
Source
Federal Aviation Administration — 'FAA Reaches One Million Airspace Authorization for Drone Pilots' (press release, 4 February 2022) · verified 2026-10-15 · Claude (VOLO agent) · interpreted 2026-10-15 · Claude (VOLO agent)
Primary source — published by the party that did this, or the authority of record. No co-signature needed.