By: Dawn Zoldi
Many unmanned traffic management (UTM) systems were built for sporadic drone flights in small pockets of static airspace for operational evaluations. Airwayz created an AI-driven airspace command and control (C2) system for real world stakeholders to operate in a very different reality – one where ports, cities and entire national programs can dependably and safely orchestrate thousands of concurrent manned and unmanned flights, on a daily basis.
Airspace As Critical Infrastructure
For Airwayz Executive Chairman Yaron Rosen, the starting point for any operation is not the drone, but rather the sky itself. After more than three decades in the Israeli Air Force and later as chief of the IDF cyber staff, Rosen learned to think of complex domains as infrastructure problems, not platform problems. In a recent Dawn of Autonomy podcast, he described low-altitude airspace as “the most contested, least governed and least scalable layer of the sky.” That layer that connects directly to the ground…and to real-world consequences.
Rosen’s “aha moment” came when he realized how closely the challenge of low-altitude airspace mirrors cyberspace: blurred lines between civil and defense, ubiquitous dual-use systems, and no clear boundary between benign and malicious activity. “Suddenly context decides, not the hardware,” he noted. That the same drone can be a toy, a sensor or a weapon, depending entirely on how and where it is used. That realization pulled him toward autonomy and UTM, where he could apply hard-won lessons from cyber and air combat to build the airspace infrastructure this new reality demands.
Lessons From Cyber: Owning the Sky Like a Network
Rosen’s cyber background profoundly shaped Airwayz’s architecture and philosophy. In the same way that modern cyber operations rely on automated defenses, real-time telemetry and historical data for forensics and policy tuning, Airwayz treats airspace as a managed network. The platform acts as a “data historian” for the sky, giving regulators and operators a single source of truth on what actually happened in a given airspace over time.
That historian role matters for policy as much as for safety. If a regulation has been in place for six months and no operations occur in that airspace, Rosen argued, regulators can finally answer why: “Either my regulation is stopping commercial development, people are not understanding the regulation or that airspace isn’t useful.” In his view, regulatory speed needs to increase. Data-rich UTM infrastructure becomes the feedback loop that makes that possible.
Beyond Permissions: Dynamic UTM As C2
Traditional UTM concepts focus on flight approvals and static corridors, essentially treating drones as traffic that must be kept apart. Airwayz takes a different approach, positioning its Dynamic UTM platform as a full-stack airspace infrastructure with four pillars: infrastructure, intuitive C2, automated decision support, and supervised autonomy.
Rosen opined about what breaks first in mixed, low-altitude airspace: control. When legitimate and illegitimate actors share the same sky, the old, tower-based model of sparse, slow manned aircraft simply cannot cope with dense, fast and highly varied traffic. In response, Airwayz built an AI-enabled system that continuously plans, simulates and tactically deconflicts flights in real time, using large language model-style assistants to help operators plan missions in plain language while optimization engines adjust routes and priorities in the background. It can reroute drones around manned aircraft, pop-up emergencies or security events without pausing operations. It draws on codified regulations, local policies and live sensor data embedded directly into the decision logic.
“The system is infrastructure, the system is command and control, the system is automated decisioning and the system is supervised autonomy,” Rosen explained. AI runs from planning through debrief, while humans remain in the loop to oversee and approve critical outcomes.
National Programs, Ports and Cities
Unlike many UTM concepts that remain in testbeds, Airwayz already manages complex, real-world environments at scale, across national programs, ports and cities globally.
Three years ago, at the Port of Rotterdam, Airwayz started with four drone vendors. Today, more than 70 vendors operate in the same port airspace under its Dynamic UTM. The port has reported savings on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars per day by shifting missions such as ship-to-shore logistics and inspections from boats to drones, all while maintaining safe integration with manned traffic. “How are they able to own their sky?” Rosen asks. “They are able to do that because they have the infrastructure, the intuitive command and control, the decisioning support and the supervised autonomy.”
A similar story also unfolds at Israel’s Port of Ashdod. There, Airwayz supports everything from ship inspections to security missions using drone-in-a-box (DIB) systems. When an unauthorized person walks near the perimeter fence, a drone automatically launches, identifies the target and provides real-time situational awareness so ground teams can respond without unnecessary risk. Here again, airspace is not an abstract construct. It is the connective tissue for missions that start and end on the ground.
In Israel’s INDI3 national drone initiative, Airwayz serves as the backbone infrastructure in its current commercial chapter for the airspace above clusters of municipalities. Multiple businesses, from food delivery providers to police and security agencies, share the same sky, scaling beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations in real cities rather than isolated test sites. “What we’re doing in this chapter is basically operationalizing and commercializing the airspace above municipalities,” Rosen explained.
Toward Ground-to-Sky Command for 2026 and Beyond
Rosen was clear that the mission does not stop at the air/ground boundary. Airwayz now seeks to build toward a multi-domain ground-up picture that integrates ground sensors, security systems and GIS intelligence into a three-dimensional operational view. “The world is not flat in Airwayz,” he said. “The world is three-dimensional,” and the system must understand where every sensor, effector and vehicle is in that 3D environment.
Looking ahead to 2026, Airwayz will focus on expanding this model into major events and logistics corridors in the United States. Its plans include building UTM infrastructure for large-scale games and stadiums as well as facilitating long-range BVLOS routes such as the Space Florida corridor between Florida and New York. Rosen described these “robot airplanes” flying back and forth on the East Coast as a way to reduce truck traffic and human error while unlocking new business models in logistics and urban air mobility (UAM).
Underpinning all of this is the company’s strong conviction that supervised autonomy will become the default mode of airspace management. Rosen expects that within roughly five years, most airspace will be dynamically managed, with towers and human-centric control rooms reserved for ground operations and specific regulated environments. Human oversight will remain important, in his assessment, even as AI continues to take on more of the workload.
Bringing Airspace Command to Everyone
Rosen’s vision remains both inclusive and expansive. “Anyone should be able to control, secure and defend their skies for any mission.Whether it is a port, a stadium, a logistics hub, a military base, or a city, Airwayz positions itself as “friends of everyone,” offering neutral, plug-and-play infrastructure that connects vendors, regulators, and operators through open APIs and shared situational awareness. In a world where low-altitude airspace is becoming a shared operational commons, Airwayz continues working toward a future where that sky is not merely traversed, but actively managed as a domain that can be owned, governed and defended.
Connect with the Airwayz team to dive deeper into how Airwayz redefines UTM as full-spectrum airspace UTM via the company’s website.
Listen to Episode 105 of the Dawn of Autonomy podcast featuring Yaron Rosen for a richer discussion of cyber–airspace parallels, INDI3 and real-world deployment lessons.