According to a recent analysis published on SUAS News, the Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) process is critically choking the drone industry, especially for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations. The report highlights that the current SORA framework is overly bureaucratic, expensive, and inconsistent, leading to major project delays and forcing numerous commercial drone initiatives to halt.
Key issues identified include redundant safety requirements and a lack of proportionality for low-risk operations. For B2B buyers in the drone sector, this means longer time-to-market, increased compliance costs, and stalled deployments of BVLOS technologies. This means enterprise users and technology providers are facing significant economic and technological potential losses unless regulatory reform is achieved.
The article urges industry stakeholders—including compliance tool vendors, risk management software providers, and BVLOS enablers—to collectively advocate for regulatory change. For B2B companies, this signals a critical market opportunity: developing solutions that streamline the SORA process for clients, reducing friction and accelerating BVLOS adoption.
Source: SUAS News, April 8, 2026.
