The Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation (FOCA) invites all interested parties to respond to a call for expression of interest to announce their willingness to provide U-space services in Switzerland. The purpose of the call is to share and discuss the performance, technical and administrative criteria that participants in the call will have to comply with/meet should they decide to provide U-space services in Switzerland. This, regardless of whether they intend to become certified by FOCA or by another (foreign) competent authority.
The aim is for the FOCA to understand and analyse the future market of U-space service providers in Switzerland and how many will need to be certified by the FOCA. In addition, FOCA would also like to discuss with the participants of the call, the level of performance, the technical and administrative requirements that they will have to meet to be a USSP in Switzerland.
Interested parties should submit their response to the Call directly in the online form available on the FOCA website at the following link.
Entry deadline: 30 March 2022
Call participants will be invited to:
- an online meeting to focus on the technical implementation of U-space services and their level of performances; and,
- for participants with their principal place of business in Switzerland, a meeting related to the certification procedure and the administrative criteria for obtaining the certificate. Additional meetings might be scheduled upon agreement between FOCA and the applicants
Call participants having their principal place of business in Switzerland will be invited to exchange about the conditions leading to certification as a U-space services provider (USSP) according to art. 15 of Regulation (EU) 2021/664. A date for formal registration to the certification process will be announced at a later stage. Since U-space services are provided in an open market, their provision is not subject to the Swiss Federal Act of 21 June 2019 on Public Procurement (PPA, SR 172.056.1).
In Switzerland, FOCA is the competent authority for the certification, audit and assessment of USSPs. The office is also responsible for defining the performance criteria that USSPs must fulfil in each U-space airspace (art.18 Regulation (EU) 2021/664). As part of its remit, FOCA will implement processes for overseeing the requirements defined in the regulation in the fields of data exchange among USSPs, service level agreements between USSPs, performance requirements for the provision of services, and all other tasks associated with the proper provision of U-space services by the USSPs.
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