On Sunday evening traffic to one of Spain’s busiest holiday islands was disrupted when drones were spotted near Palma airport in Mallorca. Eight flights were diverted when operations were halted for 35 minutes; others were delayed. It marks the latest drone incursion at a European airport — making almost 20 of these incidents in the past six weeks.
Just two weeks ago Munich airport, Germany’s second-largest hub, was shut for about two hours when drones were spotted near the airport fence. Police helicopters were scrambled to search the airspace, and more than 30 flights were cancelled or diverted before the airport was tentatively reopened. Disrupted passengers were put up on camp beds in the terminal as they waited for their flight.
At the end of September drone sightings in Danish airspace closed Copenhagen airport for four hours, forcing the cancellation of more than 100 flights and disrupting 20,000 passengers. The Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen characterised the incident as “the most serious attack on Danish critical infrastructure to date”.
So far, so 2025. Over the past six weeks in Europe drone incursions have stopped operations in Spain, Germany, Denmark and Romania, as well as in the Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania, both of which share a border with Russia. They have stymied air-traffic control operations and disrupted hundreds of thousands of passengers. But how likely are they to ruin your holiday?
Drones are problematic to airspace
Simply put, drones are unmanned aircraft and they come in all shapes and sizes. Leisure drones, used for filming or fun, are the sort you might often see buzzing above your head on a scenic beach or coastal spot. These can be small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. At the other end of the scale are military drones, the largest of which has the same wingspan as an Airbus A320 jet and the use of which has been much-documented in the war in Ukraine.
Drones, the smallest of which tend to fly within a few hundred feet of the ground but can get as high as 3-4,000ft, are a major risk to airspace because of the physical danger they pose to aircraft. The latest figures from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), which regulates the use of drones in the UK, show that there are more than half a million drone flyers and operators — although this number doesn’t include military drones — so there are a lot of them buzzing about.
Inflatable mattresses were provided at Munich International Airport
MICHAELA STACHE/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Even the smallest drones pose a serious threat to planes. Think of a bird strike, when a flock of birds are sucked into the engine on take-off, forcing an emergency landing due to a damaged engine. A drone has the capacity not just to be sucked into an engine but to go further and even cause a mid-air collision with the plane.
It’s why there are some ground rules for drone operators. CAA regulations state that it’s illegal to fly a drone within 5km of any UK airport, nor within 400ft above one. National Air Traffic Services (Nats), which manages air-traffic control, has restriction zones across the UK where drones cannot be flown. In addition, some drones are fitted with GPS technology to restrict them from flying near airports.
But it’s the incursion of military drones from foreign states that are proving more problematic to holidaymakers, with devices closing airports and airspaces entirely. In an interview with The Times, Martin Rolfe, chief executive of Nats, said that he is “starting to worry” about the idea of “offensive drones as we’ve started to see in Denmark”.
“If you assume the state might be Russia, it’s unlikely a drone’s going to fly from Russian territory to the UK,” he said. “But if it can be launched from a ship in the North Sea, perhaps it’s not so unlikely.”
“I think the geopolitical outlook being as uncertain as it is means that we are going to spend more time on drones than we have in the past. We’re making sure that civil aircraft can’t come near anything that might be considered a threat, which perhaps wasn’t present even a year ago.”
Rolfe added that drones could “change the nature of the way airports are run” if incursions start to become “ubiquitous”.
Is UK airspace at risk?
Brits will remember the Gatwick airport drone incident of 2018, when a handful of drone sightings cancelled hundreds of flights from the world’s busiest single-runway hub, and disrupted hundreds of thousands of people wanting to jet off for Christmas. No drone — or indeed culprit — was ever found, prompting speculation that the device was actually something as prosaic as a plastic bag or a bird. Others reckon it was nothing but mass panic.
The UK Airprox Board, which investigates aviation safety incidents, has reported a general uptick of near-misses with drones. In its latest report, from September, it flagged 16 incidents with drones, including four where risk of collision was “high”. That included an incident in June, when an Airbus A321 was on the final approach into Gatwick airport, and the first officer reported a drone sighting.
Drone sightings cancelled flights at Gatwick airport in 2018
EPA/FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA
Meanwhile, on a flight in May, the Airprox Board ruled that there was a “definite risk of collision” between an Airbus A320 aircraft and a drone shortly after the plane took off from London Heathrow. The report said: “The Captain and First Officer saw a bright white object pass overhead from the opposite direction. The object appeared to be approximately 2-3m in size at the very least, it may have been larger as it filled a good proportion of the windshield.”
“We take all threats to our airspace security seriously and it is illegal to fly drones within airport’s flight restriction zones,” said a Department for Transport spokesperson, which looks after UK airport protection and security. “We are working cross government to explore additional steps to protect sensitive sites. This includes the use of counter-drone technology to detect and deter unauthorised activity around critical infrastructure, such as airports, prisons, and defence establishments.
“The DfT continues to work closely with the Home Office officials to explore the use of counter-drone technology in detecting and deterring unauthorised drone activity around sensitive sites and critical infrastructure, such as airports.”
An EU white paper, European Defence — Readiness 2030, proposes the development of a “Drone Wall”, which would detect and intercept foreign drones using radar; as well as countermeasures such as interceptor drones; and jamming systems to frustrate the drone’s operation, although this won’t be operational until end of 2027 at the earliest.
Some passenger rights still apply
But the flying public have nothing to worry about, according to the CAA. A spokesperson told The Times: “We do not believe this issue is resulting in a significant increased risk to the public — airports will always put safety first.”
If your flight is delayed by a drone incursion, your airline has a duty of care and they should offer a reasonable amount of food and drink (after two hours on short flights and four hours for long-haul flights), plus accommodation, should your departure be pushed or rerouted to the next day. If your flight is cancelled, you should be offered the opportunity to rebook.
However, compensation rights under EU Regulation 261/2004 are unlikely to apply because the delay isn’t the fault of the airline, so don’t expect a cash payout.
• Compensation for cancelled and delayed flights: everything you need to know
Drone incursions are just another thing in a long line of issues that could cause delays and cancellations for today’s holidaymakers, already dealing with air-traffic restrictions, strikes and cyberattacks. “Our job is to keep people safe, even if our job might not be to get you to your destination precisely on time,” says Nats’s Martin Rolfe.
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