Plane maintenance by drones

All Nippon Airways (ANA) is set to become the first Japanese airline to use drones for plane maintenance.

ANA says the unmanned craft can compensate for a technician shortage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The airline demonstrated the workflow at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Mechanics checked a series of images captured by a drone as it flew a designated route around an aircraft.

ANA says drones will remove the need to build scaffolding for visual checks by people. It says it also plans to eventually use AI-powered image analysis. The airline is hoping to introduce drones at Haneda by 2030 before expanding them to other airports in Japan.