August 4, 2025
Skyports Drone Services and AZ Turnhout launch medical drone delivery service in Kempen, Belgium, with drones piloted from the UK
Initially operating two routes and delivering medication and pathology samples, trial to operate with a view to creating Belgium’s first permanent medical drone delivery network
London, UK, 4th August 2025 – Skyports Drone Services (Skyports), the global leader in drone delivery and inspection services for healthcare, maritime, logistics and energy use cases, and AZ Turnhout, the main healthcare provider in the Turnhout region, has launched an on-demand medical drone delivery trial in Kempen, Belgium.
Commencing on August 1st, the service will be using drones to transport urgent medical cargo between the hospital campuses of AZ Turnhout St Jozef and AZ Herentals, using A-kwadraat as a central operational hub. Flying Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and using a Remote Operations Centre (ROC) to pilot the drones, the project aims to deliver urgent medical cargo faster and more efficiently than the current system of van and bike deliveries, which is slower and often constrained by delivery schedules.
In a major regulatory breakthrough, Skyports has also secured the regulatory approval for the drones to be piloted remotely from Skyports’ Remote Operations Centre (ROC) in Buckinghamshire in the UK, which will allow the delivery network to be scaled up easily, reducing delivery costs for the medical network.
For the first stage of the project Skyports will be flying the RigiTech Eiger and the Speedbird DLV-2. The Eiger will be used to fly the A-kwadraat to AZ Herentals route, covering the 18.7km distance in 13 minutes (compared to 30 mins by road), flying with an average cruise speed of 29 m/s with a nominal operating altitude of 80m, with a max payload of 3kg. The DLV-2 will fly the A-kwadraat to St Jozef route, covering the 4.4km distance in 7 minutes (compared to 16 mins by road), flying with an average cruise speed of 16 m/s with a nominal operating altitude of 50m, with a max payload of 5kg.
At the beginning of June, airspace receivers were installed on the roofs of all the hospitals in the region to help facilitate the drone operations, ensuring that the drones can integrate with existing crewed airspace. Precision landing QR barcodes have also be placed at each location to mark the automated drone landing sites.
For the first phase of the trial the drones will be flying 5 days a week, with a longer term ambition to develop the first permanent medical drone delivery network in Belgium, providing automated drone delivery stations at the key hospital sights in Kempen which could be operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Commenting on the launch, Jef Geudens, Head of Technology, Skyports Drone Services, said: “By transporting medical samples and medication quickly and reliably through the air, Skyports is enabling the future centralisation of laboratory activities in specialised hubs such as A-kwadraat. This means that not every hospital needs to invest in the same costly infrastructure. At the same time, this can help accelerate access to personalised treatments — such as patient-specific chemotherapy — which can be delivered faster and made available across multiple locations.”
Griet Braekmans, Director of Facilities and Project Manager at AZ Turnhout said:
“As a hospital, we are of course very enthusiastic about this project. For years, we’ve been working together with hospitals in the Kempen region and A-kwadraat in the areas of medication and pathology samples. Over the past five years, we’ve focused on organizing transport between hospitals in an efficient and sustainable way. With drones, we can provide more personalized care for patients and improve collaboration between hospitals.”
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About the project partners:
The trials are supported by the Belgium/Netherlands U-space Reference Design Implementation (BURDI) Project, which aims to ensure the safe and sustainable integration of multiple drone operations, including beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), with traditional manned aviation. The project is co-funded by the European Union and SESAR Joint Undertaking.
Other technical partners in the project include Belgian companies Skeydrone and Unifly. Skeydrone is the designated U-space Service Provider (USSP) within the project, enabling the necessary flight authorisations and real-time air traffic monitoring, ensuring the operation can be conducted safely. Unifly provides the Unmanned Traffic Management system to Skeydrone, enabling real-time, compliant, and efficient drone operations within the U-space framework.
About Skyports Drone Services
Skyports Drone Services is the world’s leading drone airline. We are experts in BVLOS flight for delivery and inspection use cases. We partner with maritime and offshore industries, healthcare providers, infrastructure and asset owners, and public bodies to improve connectivity, safety and sustainability with drone operations. Skyports Drone Services is committed to scaling the drone industry to enable businesses and individuals to reap the rewards of drone technology.
Find out more at: www.skyportsdroneservices.com
About AZ Turnhout
AZ Turnhout, with its two campuses, is the main healthcare provider in the Turnhout region. The hospital aims to offer patients specialized and high-quality care close to home. We strive to be a true “Guest-House” in the literal sense of the word: welcoming patients and visitors the same way we welcome guests into our own homes. AZ Turnhout treats 26,000 patients per year and has 2,300 staff members and 190 doctors.
About AZ Herentals
“We guarantee care!” is the tagline supported by all 1,000 staff members of AZ Herentals, including 160 doctors.
Our mission as a regional healthcare institution is to provide professional basic care to all patients, with customer-friendliness and quality as the key principles embraced by our doctors, hospital staff, and management.
About A-kwadraat
A-kwadraat is a social enterprise with 675 employees. They work in their own production facilities in Turnhout, Gierle, and Hoogstraten, as well as on-site at client locations. Their expertise includes healthcare, food, woodworking, and green maintenance, but A-kwadraat also offers a wide range of value-added services to companies in other sectors.
At its healthcare site in the Turnhout industrial zone, A-kwadraat operates cleanrooms suitable for handling medicines and medical devices. Since 2019, AZ Turnhout and A-kwadraat have been working closely together—a strong example of a sustainable local partnership and an inclusive economy.
Media contacts:
Skyports:
Doug Anson
Senior Communications & Marketing Manager
(+44) 7961 444 350
AZ Turnhout:
Lies Delvaux
Communications Department
(+32) 14 40 46 71