Unmanned traffic management provider Altitude Angel has entered administration in a setback to the nascent commercial drone sector in the UK.
FRP Advisory was appointed as joint administrators, and filings were made with Companies House earlier this month.
Altitude Angel was founded in 2014 by Richard Parker to provide digital services for drone operators and airspace managers. Its products included the widely used Drone Assist safety and flight planning app, which allows drone operators to view airspace hazards and restrictions as well as submit flight authorization requests
Altitude Angel’s unmanned traffic management (UTM) technology consists of two main elements: GuardianUTM provides an interface between airspace managers and drone operators, ARROW is a wide area surveillance and data fusion platform that enables beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights.
UK national telco BT invested £5 million in early 2023 in Altitude Angel via its now shuttered innovation division Etc, with plans to help create a key player in the BVLOS drone market. Altitude Angel was also the lead firm in Project Skyway, a £8.5 million government-funded initiative to create a 165 mile (256km) BLVOS commercial drone corridor in the UK – a so-called “drone super highway”.
However, the commercial drone market is still failing to grow significantly in the UK and Europe, and Altitude Angel, which employed around 50 people, has been unable to scale up. Project Skyway ended in January this year without a successor project.
UK drone trade association ARAPS-UK advised drone operators to use alternatives such as ATC Advisor by Dronedesk, the NATS AIS website and UAS Restriction Zones for airspace information.
APRAS-UK said, “We are saddened and surprised to learn of the situation concerning Altitude Angel, a British technology company that has been at the forefront of the drone industry for nearly a decade, both in the UK and internationally.
“Thousands of drone operators and remote pilots have relied on the Drone Assist app as an essential tool for safe and compliant operations. We hope that the platform will be taken forward by another organisation to ensure continued service to the community.”
