Turkey Approves Airspace Corridors for AI-Enabled Unmanned Aircraft

Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu announced the establishment of dedicated airspace corridors for unmanned aircraft, under the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Regulations (SHT-İHA) issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (SHGM) on 30 July 2024.

Uraloglu clarified that they will create "digitally-defined flight paths in airspace," enabling unmanned aircraft to operate safely and in an orderly manner along specified routes. He highlighted this as opening the door to a new independent transport mode separate from ground traffic movement.

The boundaries of the corridors, entry and exit points, flight directions, capacity, and minimum separation standards between aircraft will be defined digitally through the SHGM's Unmanned Aircraft Traffic Management and Control System (İHATTYS), from which unmanned aircraft software will read this data directly. The minister stressed that corridors will be planned to avoid no-fly zones, restricted areas, hazardous zones, and airspace subject to NOTAMs.

The minister confirmed that autonomous flight routes will be determined with artificial intelligence support based on shortest-path and time-difference criteria. He noted that if communications are lost, unmanned aircraft will be directed to predetermined safe emergency landing zones away from populated areas.

The minister identified logistics, healthcare, and infrastructure among the primary use sectors, pointing to the possibility of transporting blood, medicines, vaccines, and medical samples between hospitals, supplying remote islands and settlements during winter, transferring parts between organized industrial zones, factories and ports, and conducting long-term inspections of power lines, pipelines, railways, and roads.

These corridors will remain closed to recreational aerial flights, and only pilots holding SHGM-certified P2 licenses working for licensed operators may fly within them. Requirements include aircraft registration, remote identification, geofencing, and necessary software certificates, with mandatory notification through İHATTYS before each flight.