EMSA RPAS Maritime Surveillance

The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) provides remotely piloted aircraft services free of charge to coast guard authorities in EU and EFTA states, for maritime surveillance, pollution and emissions monitoring, fisheries control and search and rescue. EMSA contracts the aircraft, payloads, pilots and data links from industry under framework contracts and feeds the data into its own maritime information systems. Operations started in late 2017, and by 2023 the service had flown more than 14,700 hours in 58 operations for 16 countries. In July 2025 it ran nine operations in parallel across 11 EU and EEA states, and in December 2025 EMSA awarded Airbus a 30 million euro framework contract for Flexrotor services starting in 2026.