Helsinki is currently exploring how drones could assist with transport during exceptional circumstances. The flights in November will cover a distance of around seven kilometers and will be flown several times per weekday.
In early November, the City of Helsinki is piloting drone transports for healthcare supplies on an approximately seven-kilometer route from Kyläsaari to the Laajasalo healthcare station. Kyläsaari is located about 4 kilometres from the Helsinki city centre and Laajasalo is a large island east of the city.
The flights are scheduled between October 29 and November 7, 2025, and will be flown several times a day on weekdays during office hours. Poor weather may affect the test flights but the pilot will end by November 14 at the latest.
“Helsinki hasn’t piloted this longer distance, regular drone transportation with goods before. There is a lot of potential for the future and I am excited to see how these tests will go. There were already many lessons learned from the long and sometimes challenging process to get these flights happening,” says Senior Project Manager Renske Martijnse-Hartikka from the City of Helsinki’s innovation company, Forum Virium Helsinki. Martijnse-Hartikka leads the European Union-funded CITYAM project that coordinates these pilot flights.
The goal of the pilot is to determine how drones could be utilized in city logistics, either for regular healthcare deliveries or for example in exceptional and crisis situations such as a new pandemic.
“Drones are a new form of transport with a lot of potential. In congested and fully-built cities, making deliveries by air can streamline shipments and improve the city’s operational efficiency. This drone experiment, which is now beginning, is truly interesting and will offer us many lessons,” states Sami Aherva, Logistics Unit Director at Stara.
Light Cargo Flies at Low Altitude with Permission
The drone used for transports this November has a wingspan of 2.6 metres and carries a maximum of three kilograms of cargo at a time, at an altitude of 60 to 100 meters. For the trials, it carries everyday healthcare supplies such as masks, gloves, and disinfectant. In the future, air transport by drone could be used for a much wider range of medical products.
“This is an interesting experiment for us because we gain concrete experience with a new delivery method for goods logistics that will be significant in the future, as well as its requirements. The experiment also gives us guidelines for developing goods logistics and for how we can take into account possible disruption and exceptional situations in logistics,” says Ari Lallo, Acting Head of Transport and Logistics for the Social, Health, and Rescue Services Sector.
The flights are carried out beyond the visual line of sight, with a permit granted by the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, and under the continuous supervision of a human operator. Aviant flies the flights from Oslo but there is also a ground staff member in Helsinki making sure that the drone is ready to take off and fly.
The pilot flights are a collaboration between the City of Helsinki’s Construction Services Stara, the City of Helsinki’s Social Services, Health Care and Rescue Services Division, and the innovation company Forum Virium Helsinki. The flight operator is the Norwegian company Aviant, which operates similar flights in other Nordic countries too.
