Drone Law Brief | May 2026: DGCA issues new circular for RPTO; CBI arrested DGCA Deputy Director; China's NPC adopted Civil Aviation Law effective from 1st July

On 18 April 2026, the Central Bureau of Investigation arrested a Deputy Director General of the DGCA and a senior Reliance executive in a trap operation tied to three pending drone-import applications. Abroad, the FAA softened its nationwide restriction on flying near federal mobile assets and proposed a new fixed-site framework under 14 CFR Part 74, Beijing introduced a permit-only regime covering the sale, storage, and flight of drones, China’s two mandatory national standards on registration and live identification took effect, and South Korean prosecutors charged the figures behind drones flown across the Military Demarcation Line. We cover 17 developments across nine jurisdictions.

India

1. DGCA issued circular issuing minimum criteria for authorisation of RPTO

   
   

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) brought Drone Training Circular of 2026 into effect on 13 May 2026, replacing the 2022 circular for authorising drone-pilot schools (Remote Pilot Training Organisations, or RPTOs). The new circular caps a four-year evolution. The 2020 and 2022 frameworks laid the foundations, including the demanding 150-hour syllabus for Category 2 (BVLOS) training, but ran largely on manual logs and applications through the Digital Sky Portal. The 2024 and 2026 revisions professionalised the workforce, drawing a clear line between RPC Instructors and Master Instructors, with Master Instructors now required to have trained at least 100 successful pilot candidates. The whole system has since moved onto the eGCA portal, which handles instructor associations and lets candidates apply for their pilot certificate within seven days of completing training, and the 2026 circular extends the validity of school authorisations.

It should be noted that drone schools and instructors should treat eGCA as the single system of record, keep their digital training files current and confirm instructors meet the new experience thresholds before applying.

2. CBI arrested DGCA Deputy Director General and Reliance executive in drone import bribery case

   
   

The Central Bureau of Investigation (‘CBI’) on 18 April 2026 registered FIR and arrested Mudavath Devula, Deputy Director General at the Airworthiness Directorate of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Bharat Mathur, a Senior Vice-President at Reliance Industries, in a trap operation tied to pending drone-import approvals for Asteria Aerospace Ltd. Asteria is a subsidiary of Reliance's technology arm, Jio Platforms. The CBI booked Devula, Mathur and Asteria under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023. Reliance has not been named as an accused in the first information report.

According to the CBI, Mathur approached Devula on 18 March 2026 to enquire about the status of three pending applications to import drones for Asteria. The agency states that the two settled on a bribe of Rs. 5 lakh per file, Rs. 15 lakh in total, for processing the three applications, and that Devula directed delivery at Essex Farms, near the IIT Delhi flyover, by the evening of 18 April 2026. The CBI seized Rs. 2.5 lakh at the trap and recovered a further Rs. 37 lakh in cash, along with gold and silver coins and several digital devices, in searches at four locations in Delhi.

On 19 April 2026, Special Judge Chhavi Kapoor of the Rouse Avenue Court remanded both accused to three days of CBI custody, extended custody by two days on 22 April and on 24 April committed them to judicial custody until 6 May 2026. In statements recorded on 27 April, Asteria's co-founders told the CBI that the three applications had been filed by the company. In his statement of 21 April, Mathur is reported to have said that Asteria had been acquired by Reliance in 2019-20, that he had been made aware of the pending files within the company and that the payment had been intended to expedite administrative approval of the applications.

On 4 May 2026, the court granted Mathur bail on a bond of Rs. 1 lakh with one surety, noting that he had been interrogated for five days, had no prior criminal record, was a long-standing Delhi resident with deep roots in society and that nothing incriminating had been recovered from his residence; further custody, the judge held, would serve no purpose. Devula, the DGCA officer, remained in judicial custody. 

Operators and manufacturers awaiting airworthiness or import clearances should anticipate closer documentary scrutiny and slower processing while the investigation continues and should ensure that every regulatory engagement is on the record and routed through formal channels rather than informal contact with officials.

United States

1. FAA replaces the 'ICE NOTAM', softening drone restrictions near federal mobile assets

   
   

The Federal Aviation Administration (‘FAA’) on 15 April 2026 issued FDC NOTAM 6/2824, replacing FDC 6/4375, the nationwide “ICE NOTAM” we reported in our February 2026 edition and whose First Amendment challenge we covered in our March–April 2026 edition. The replacement removes the fixed stand-off distances of 3,000 feet laterally and 1,000 feet vertically, drops the “National Defense Airspace” classification and changes the operative language from “prohibited” to “advised” for covered mobile assets. It adds the Department of Justice to the covered agencies and adopts the administration's renaming of the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.” The following day, on 16 April 2026, the FAA superseded 6/2824 with FDC 6/3366, the advisory now in force, which keeps the softened posture, omits the specific stand-off measurements and directs operators to the FAA UAS Facility Map for further national-security postings.

Both notices preserve the agencies' counter-UAS authority. The FAA continues to warn that those agencies may interfere with, disrupt, seize, damage or destroy any unmanned aircraft deemed a credible safety or security threat. The softer language lowers the risk of an inadvertent violation, but the replacement leaves “proximity” undefined, so an operator still has no published, mapped boundary for covered mobile assets, which was the central practical defect raised in the litigation.

Part 107 operators should read this as a reduction in absolute prohibition, not in risk. With no defined proximity distance and interdiction authority intact, the prudent course near visible federal law-enforcement or military activity is unchanged - postpone the flight and document the pre-flight check.

2. FAA proposes 14 CFR Part 74 framework for drone restrictions over fixed-site critical infrastructure

   
   

The FAA on 6 May 2026 published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, “Designation - Restrict the Operation of Unmanned Aircraft in Close Proximity to a Fixed Site Facility,” proposing a new 14 CFR Part 74. The rule implements Section 2209 of the FAA Extension, Safety and Security Act of 2016, a mandate Congress reiterated in 2018 and 2024 but which the FAA had not, until now, carried into a proposed rule. It would let the operator or proprietor of a qualifying fixed-site facility apply for an Unmanned Aircraft Flight Restriction (‘UAFR’) on a showing that the restriction is necessary for aviation safety, the protection of people and property on the ground, national security or homeland security.

The NPRM proposes two designations. Standard UAFRs cover a volume of airspace, typically capped at 400 feet above ground level and confined to the facility’s property boundaries, within which unauthorised drone operations are generally prohibited. Special UAFRs are reserved for sites with credible safety or security threats, carry stricter access controls and are typically sponsored by federal security or intelligence agencies. Eligible critical infrastructure tracks the categories Congress identified: energy generation, transmission and distribution; oil refineries; chemical facilities; amusement parks; railroad facilities and state prisons. Designations may run for up to five years and the FAA estimates more than 9,000 applications over the first five years. The FAA states that a Part 74 designation does not confer any counter-UAS authority granted separately by Congress: a UAFR restricts operations; it does not authorise interdiction. Comments are due on 6 July 2026.

This intends to replace the security NOTAMs for fixed sites. Operators flying near energy, rail, chemical or correctional facilities should map their routine corridors against the eligible-site categories now and plan to comment before 6 July, because a granted UAFR will be a legally enforceable no-fly volume.

3. FCC seeks comment on “Unleashing American Drone Dominance”

   
   

The Federal Communications Commission (‘FCC’) released Public Notice DA 26-314, “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” on 1 April 2026 and published it in the Federal Register on 16 April 2026. Issued jointly by the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology, the notice seeks comment across six areas: spectrum access for UAS, experimental licensing, testbeds and innovation zones, counter-UAS regulatory barriers, federal coordination and market-based investment incentives. It builds on the FCC's December 2025 decision to add all foreign-produced UAS and critical components to its Covered List, which we reported in our November 2025 and February 2026 editions and implements two executive orders signed on 6 June 2025, Unleashing American Drone Dominance and Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty.

On spectrum, the FCC asks how to bring the 5030–5091 MHz band, for which it adopted initial service rules in 2024 but has not implemented, into active use for command-and-control links; whether to reconsider the 960–1164 MHz band; and whether to lift airborne restrictions on flexible-use commercial bands. On counter-UAS, it asks whether to revise its Part 5 experimental-licensing rules so that counter-drone systems can be tested for operational mitigation rather than research alone. Comments were due by 1 May 2026 and replies to the comments were due by 18 May 2026.

US spectrum and licensing rules are being reorganised around a domestic-manufacturing and counter-UAS agenda. For Indian manufacturers and component suppliers with clean, non-covered supply chains, the same policy that closes the US market to covered foreign systems is the one opening procurement and spectrum room for alternatives.

4. DJI opposes FCC dismissal motion at the Ninth Circuit over Covered List ban

   
   

SZ DJI Technology Co. and DJI Service LLC on 15 April 2026 filed their opposition to the FCC's motion to dismiss before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in SZ DJI Technology Co. and DJI Service LLC v. Federal Communications Commission. The dispute stems from the FCC's December 2025 decision to place all foreign-made UAS on its Covered List, the action we reported in our November 2025 and February 2026 editions, which DJI challenged by petition filed in February 2026. In the 32-page brief, DJI quantifies the harm for the first time: 14 of its products have had their FCC equipment authorisations voided (five drones and nine non-drone devices), 25 planned 2026 launches are blocked from the US market and the company projects USD 1.56 billion in lost US revenue this calendar year.

Rather than press the merits, DJI asks the court to deny the dismissal motion and hold the case in abeyance for six months, with a status report due in November 2026, so the full Commission can rule on DJI's pending reconsideration petition during the pause. FCC's motion argues that the bureau-level Covered List notice is not yet a final, reviewable order while reconsideration is pending and is therefore premature. The harm, DJI adds, extends to the police, fire, utility and other commercial users who can no longer buy newly approved DJI hardware, as reported by DroneXL.

The case sets whether the Covered List mechanism survives constitutional and administrative-law scrutiny, but the abeyance request means the outcome may turn first on what the full Commission does, not the court. For Indian manufacturers, it is a reminder that US market access now hinges on supply-chain provenance rather than product capability.

5. FAA launches the DETER Programme, tightening enforcement for UAS violations

   
   

The FAA on 17 April 2026 published in the Federal Register its new Drone Expedited and Targeted Enforcement Response Programme, effective the same date, establishing a structured settlement and enforcement mechanism for small UAS operators who violate FAA regulations. The DETER Programme implements Section 6 of the Executive Order Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty (6 June 2025), which directed the FAA to ensure full enforcement of applicable civil and criminal laws against UAS operators who endanger the public, violate established airspace restrictions or operate a drone in furtherance of another crime.

The programme operates in conjunction with FAA Order 2150.3C, Change 13 (21 January 2026), which issued the UAS Enforcement Compliance and Enforcement Bulletin No. 2026-1, requiring mandatory legal enforcement action - as distinct from the prior compliance-action pathway, under which operators who acted carelessly but were willing to comply could often resolve matters without formal proceedings, for all three categories of violation identified in the Executive Order. Under DETER, first-time individual violators who are eligible under the programme may seek prompt settlement by admitting liability and waiving the right to a lengthy appeals process, in exchange for reduced fees. Certificated and non-certificated operators are both eligible, subject to the programme's eligibility conditions.

The prior FAA compliance-action pathway, which was the default resolution for many minor UAS incidents, is no longer available for the categories of conduct covered by the UAS Enforcement Bulletin. Operators who fly near restricted zones, operate in a manner that creates a safety risk, or use a UAS in connection with any other offence now face mandatory referral to the FAA's legal enforcement process, regardless of intent or willingness to comply thereafter. Part 107 operators, commercial operators, and recreational flyers alike are within scope. Those building regular operations near sensitive infrastructure, events, or airspace boundaries should review their standard operating procedures against the three trigger categories in the Executive Order and the Bulletin, because a single incident that crosses into those categories now carries automatic enforcement exposure rather than the discretionary compliance response previously available.

United Kingdom

1. Law Commission recommends a reform roadmap for drones, eVTOLs and traffic management

   
   

The Law Commission of England and Wales published its final report on 20 May 2026, concluding a three-year review commissioned by the Department for Transport (‘DfT’) and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It finds that, although a legal framework already governs drones, several areas need clarification before remotely piloted and autonomous operations can scale safely and it draws a central distinction: a flight in which a human pilot can intervene is remotely piloted and anything beyond that is autonomous.

The report recommends reallocating pilot responsibilities to the UAS operator for fully autonomous operations, mandating flight data recorders for autonomous drone and eVTOL operations, modernising the law on hijacking under the Aviation Security Act 1982 to cover seizure by technological rather than physical means and enabling, through legislative change, the certification of UAS traffic management (UTM) providers, which the existing air-navigation regime does not adequately accommodate. The CAA welcomed the report and said it will support the DfT in responding within a year, noting that its Future Flight Programme already targets routine BVLOS operations by 2027 and a commercial eVTOL framework by 2028.

These are recommendations and implementation will turn on the government's response and subsequent legislation. For operators and manufacturers planning UK BVLOS, eVTOL or UTM ventures, the report is the clearest signal yet of the direction of reform, and the DfT response over the coming year should be watched out for.

2. UK CAA Market Surveillance Authority flags suspected non-compliance with UK class marks

   
   

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (‘CAA’), named by the government as the United Kingdom's Market Surveillance Authority (MSA) for unmanned aircraft systems in March 2025, published an advisory in May 2026 recording a number of reports of suspected non-compliance with UK class marking in the Open Category. The MSA states that it investigates each product-safety report directly with the relevant manufacturer under its market-surveillance process, requesting the technical data needed to verify a product against the class mark it carries. Pending an investigation, the MSA may take no action, where the product meets the requirements or work with the manufacturer to bring the product back into compliance.

The advisory restates the position on night operations and class marking. A UAS flown at night in the Open Category must display a green flashing light under UK Regulation (EU); where a drone is not fitted with one, a light may be retrofitted in accordance with CAA guidance without invalidating the class marking. Between 1 January 2026 and 31 December 2027, the MSA will continue to honour EU class marking as a transition arrangement and from 1 January 2028, a UK class-marked UAS will need a green flashing light to comply with the UK class mark where specified.

The advisory operates within the class-marking regime that took effect on 1 January 2026, the UK class marks UK0 to UK6 and the night-lighting rule, which we covered through the March 2026 Drone and Model Aircraft Code (CAP 2320) in our March-April 2026 edition. It is the enforcement-side counterpart to that regime: the rules are now in force and the regulator has begun testing products in the market against them.

Manufacturers placing drones on the UK market should keep class-mark technical files ready for MSA verification on request, because a product found non-compliant can be required to change. Operators relying on an EU class mark have certainty only to 31 December 2027 and should plan now for the UK class-mark and night-lighting requirements that bind from 1 January 2028.

United Arab Emirates

GCAA reopens UAE airspace, status of the drone-specific suspension not separately confirmed 

The General Civil Aviation Authority (‘GCAA’) of the UAE, in a statement issued through its official channels on 2 May 2026, announced the full resumption of normal air navigation operations across UAE airspace and the lifting of the temporary precautionary measures in force since the regional security incidents of 28 February 2026. The GCAA said the decision followed a review of operational and security conditions conducted with national authorities and that it would maintain continuous real-time monitoring. The reopening allowed Dubai International Airport and Abu Dhabi's Zayed International Airport, both affected during the conflict, to return toward full operations. We had covered the  suspension in our March-April 2026 edition.

The 2 May 2026 statement addresses air navigation broadly. In the version available through official and press channels, it does not separately confirm the rescission of Safety Decision 2026-03 as it applies to UAS approvals and authorisations, so the position on the drone-specific suspension remains to be confirmed. 

Operators holding GCAA drone approvals suspended under Safety Decision 2026-03 should not assume the 2 May 2026 reopening reinstates them. Until the GCAA confirms its position on UAS authorisations specifically, the prudent step is to verify approval status directly with the authority before resuming operations.

Canada

Bill C-15 receives Royal Assent, amending the Aeronautics Act on drone interference and counter-drone authorisations

Bill C-15 received Royal Assent on 26 March 2026, amending the Aeronautics Act to address drone security risks. As Transport Canada set out in the April 2026 issue of its Drone Zone newsletter, the amendments more clearly prohibit unlawful interference with drone operations and enable Transport Canada to issue authorisations to certain entities to interdict drones that present security risks. The stated aim is to hold individuals accountable for intentionally interfering with authorised drone operations and to give law enforcement and other agencies the tools to identify and respond to threats from unauthorised drones.

The measure places Canada among the jurisdictions formalising counter-drone authority. It is the Canadian counterpart to the United Kingdom's Armed Forces Bill 2026, which would grant defence personnel powers to detect, intercept, and defeat drones near Ministry of Defence sites and which we covered in our March-April 2026 edition, and it sits within the same counter-UAS trend reflected in the United States NOTAM and fixed-site developments covered elsewhere in this edition.

The interference offence cuts both ways. Authorised operators in Canada gain a clearer basis to treat deliberate interference with their flights as unlawful, while every operator should expect that interdiction of unauthorised drones near sensitive sites now rests on an express statutory footing. Watch for the authorisations and regulations Transport Canada will issue to give the framework operational effect.

China

1. Beijing imposes a permit-only drone regime covering sale, transport, storage and flight

   
   

The Beijing Municipal People's Congress Standing Committee approved a municipal drone regulation on 28 March 2026, effective 1 May 2026, establishing one of the most restrictive urban drone-control regimes adopted by any major city. As reported by the South China Morning Post citing Xinhua, the regulation prohibits the sale or lease of unmanned aircraft and 17 designated core components to any person or organisation without public-security approval and forbids bringing new drones or core components into Beijing's administrative area, subject to an exception for drones already under real-name registration and carried by verified owners. Within the Sixth Ring Road, an area of about 2,288 square kilometres, no single location may store more than three drones or ten core components without further authorisation.

The regulation designates the whole of Beijing as controlled airspace: every outdoor flight requires prior approval, with no area open by default and users must complete mandatory online training and testing. Existing owners were required to complete real-name registration with the police by 30 April 2026 and to complete information verification within three months, by 31 July 2026. The Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau issued three trial administrative measures on 28 March 2026 to support implementation, including measures for the verification of unmanned-aircraft information. Penalties for unlawfully carrying drones into Beijing range from a rectification order to confiscation of equipment and fines of RMB 500 to RMB 10,000. Yanqing district has been designated a dedicated flight zone for research, education and industrial testing.

The regulation treats drones less as consumer electronics than as controlled items, a posture other Chinese cities may follow. For manufacturers and operators with a Beijing footprint, the regime changes the terms of doing business: retail sale within the city is closed without approval, fleet storage is capped and security-reviewed and every flight is permission-based. Companies should map their Beijing holdings against the storage caps, complete owner verification before the 31 July deadline and assume that any movement of aircraft or components into the city now requires prior clearance.

2. Two mandatory national standards on registration and live identification take effect

   
   

China's two mandatory national standards for civil unmanned aircraft, formulated under the Civil Aviation Administration of China (‘CAAC’) and approved by the State Administration for Market Regulation, took effect on 1 May 2026. As the CAAC recorded, "Requirements for Real-Name Registration and Activation of Civil Unmanned Aircraft," requires that a drone have no flight capability either before activation or after deactivation and sets out the registration workflow, registering entities, data-exchange interfaces and cancellation. "Specifications for the Identification of Civil Unmanned Aircraft System Operations," requires a drone to transmit identity, location, speed and operational status continuously, from power-on through the whole flight, over both broadcast-mode and network-mode links, enabling real-time monitoring by the authorities.

New production drones must comply from 1 May 2026, while drones already in use have a grace period of roughly a further year to complete back-registration and activation. The standards implement China's Interim Regulations on the Flight Management of Unmanned Aircraft, and, on CAAC figures, apply to a base of more than two million registered drones and nearly 20,000 holders of operation certificates recorded at the end of 2024.

Together the two standards answer, in the regulator's framing, the questions of who may fly and who is flying: GB 46761-2025 ties a working aircraft to a verified registration and GB 46750-2025 makes each aircraft continuously identifiable in flight.

The standards are a hard production requirement: aircraft must ship with both broadcast and network identification, with activation tied to registration. Operators running older fleets should plan back-registration within the grace period, because non-compliant aircraft will not be lawfully operable once it closes.

3. Revised Civil Aviation Law brings drones into the national aviation statute from 1 July 2026

   
   

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress adopted a revised Civil Aviation Law on 27 December 2025, to take effect on 1 July 2026, bringing civil unmanned aircraft into China's primary aviation statute for the first time. As the CAAC and state media recorded, the law requires entities engaged in the design, production, import, maintenance and operation of civil unmanned aircraft to obtain airworthiness certification from the civil aviation authority unless exempted and requires manufacturers to assign a unique identification code to each aircraft. Reporting on the law notes that micro, light and small drones remain outside the airworthiness-certification requirement, which falls on medium and large aircraft.

This aligns China's direction with the certification-based approaches of the European Union and the United States while adding identity and traceability obligations at the level of primary law.

For manufacturers and importers of medium and large drones, the practical signal is to build CAAC airworthiness certification and unique-identifier provisioning into product and supply-chain planning ahead of 1 July 2026 and to factor certification lead times into any launch or import schedule for the Chinese market.

South Korea

Prosecutors charge drone-company figures over North Korea incursions as a defence-acquisition audit opens

A military-police joint investigation into drones flown from South Korea into North Korean airspace has produced criminal charges and within the reporting window, a defence-procurement audit. On 25 March 2026, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office indicted a 32-year-old company director, on charges including benefiting the enemy and violating the Aviation Safety Act and indicted two further executives of the same drone company, without detention, on the same charges. Prosecutors allege the three directed drones across the Military Demarcation Line on four occasions to capture footage over the Kaesong area, intending to escalate inter-Korean tensions.

On 6 April 2026, President Lee Jae Myung expressed regret to Pyongyang over civilian drone incursions, in a statement at a cabinet meeting, after the investigation found that a National Intelligence Service employee and two active-duty military officers had assisted the operator. Within the window, on 22 May 2026, the Ministry of National Defense confirmed that a joint internal audit with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) is under way at the National Assembly's request, examining how the Drone Operations Command acquired the drones used in the infiltration mission. The audit sits within the wider martial-law investigation, amid allegations that cross-border drone flights were intended to provoke a North Korean response.

The case shows how consumer-grade and military drone programmes intersect with aviation and national-security law. The Aviation Safety Act charges treat unauthorised cross-border flight as an aviation offence layered on national-security and military-installation statutes, while the DAPA audit turns the lens onto the procurement chain behind a state drone unit.

The proceedings are a reminder that drone flights near sensitive borders carry aviation-law exposure independent of any security or political dimension, and that defence-drone procurement is now subject to the same scrutiny, including formal audit, applied to other military acquisitions. The matter parallels the border-incursion concerns we reported in India's context in our March-April 2026 edition, where the Indian Parliament was told of sustained drone sightings along the international border.

Singapore

CAAS and SESAR Joint Undertaking sign an air-traffic-management declaration with UTM relevance

The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (‘CAAS’) and the Single European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking (‘SESAR JU’) signed a Joint Declaration on 26 May 2026, on the sidelines of Airspace World 2026 in Lisbon, to advance air-traffic-management cooperation and improve air traffic flows between Singapore and Europe. As the CAAS media release records, the declaration, commits the two sides to contribute to the International Civil Aviation Organization's minimum implementation path for cross-regional operations, and to collaborate on future concepts including trajectory-based operations and AI-enabled common situational pictures of traffic, weather, and aeronautical information.

For drone operators there is no immediate compliance change. The item is included as forward context, because the convergence of crewed-ATM modernisation and UTM under common trajectory-based concepts is the direction in which integrated airspace, including for BVLOS drone operations, is heading.

Australia

CASA publishes AusSORA, its adapted BVLOS risk-assessment framework

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority ('CASA') published an Advisory Circular in April 2026 introducing AusSORA, Australia's adapted version of the European JARUS SORA 2.5 methodology for assessing complex remotely piloted aircraft operations, including BVLOS flights. The framework takes effect on 11 May 2026 and replaces the temporary instruction that had governed SORA-based approvals since 2024. 

AusSORA makes a few practical changes. CASA, rather than the applicant, now carries out the containment assessment, so operators need only provide take-off location details instead of calculating containment areas themselves. The ground-risk scoring adds a new category for sparsely populated areas, those with fewer than 0.5 persons per square kilometre, reflecting operations in remote and outback regions rather than the denser European baseline on which the original methodology was built. The environmental testing burden has been eased for some higher-risk operations, and drones weighing 250 grams or less are automatically placed in the lowest ground-risk category.

Operators holding current BVLOS approvals should confirm the position on renewals with CASA, since some methods previously used to reduce containment requirements are no longer accepted and may need to be reassessed. India has not adopted any equivalent risk-based framework under the Drone Rules, 2021 and the contrast between Australia's structured pathway and India's case-by-case exemption route shows the distance that remains before commercial BVLOS operations can be routinely authorised in Indian airspace.