Future Flight Governance Socio-legal, Environmental and Economic Approaches

Introduction

Adam Michael Packer, Mariela de Amstalden and Michael Lewis

Section I: Understandings and Perceptions of Future Flight

1. (Re-)Imagining Future Flight in the UK: Public Responses to Future Flight Media Imagery and their Implications

Will Mason-Wilkes and Fern Elsdon-Baker

2. Perceptions of Future Flight Technologies through a Social Psychological Lens: The stereotypes we hold and the impacts they have

Rebecca E. Hughes

3. Advanced Air Mobility Grey Literature: Key Themes and Frames

Caroline McCalman

Section II: Shaping Experiences of Future Flight

4. Accessibility in Current Air Travel: Considerations for Future Flight Technologies

Kay Atkin

5. From Hindsight to Foresight: Leveraging TRSE Research for Inclusive Future Flight Development

Alexander J. Carter and Alisi Mekatoa

6. Understanding Uncertainties for the Future of Drone Deliveries Through Stakeholder Engagement and Co-Design

Daniela Paddeu and Eda Beyazit

7. Trials, Representations and Uncertainties: Involving People with Advanced Air Mobilities.

Angela Smith, Janet Dickinson, Taalia Nadeem, Ben Snow, Matt Grote and Tom Cherrett

8. Approaching Future Flight: Urban Life and Design in the Drone Age

Anna Jackman and Paul Cureton

Section III: The Governance of Future Flight

9. Advocating a Multilevel Governance Analysis of Advanced Air Mobility

Adam Michael Packer and Louise Reardon

10. The Tentative Governance of Drone Systems: Balancing Hierarchical and Collective Mechanisms?

Michael A. Lewis, Mariela de Amstalden and Daniela Paddeu

11. The EU’s Direction of Air Travel: Charting the Flight Plan to Realise a ‘Droning’ Ambition

Sarah Jane Fox

12. Envisioning Sustainable Future Flight Ecosystems

Chenyi Liao, Christopher J. Parker and Graham Parkhurst

Biography

Mariela de Amstalden (Dr.iur., LL.M, FHEA, attorney-at-law) is an interdisciplinary and socio-legal scholar. Her academic research focuses on the law of transformative technologies, global economic governance, and intellectual property rights. She is currently on research sabbatical as visiting fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge (UK) under a Royal Society APEX Award (APX\R1\231024) for her work on the legalities of future technologies. Formerly, she was an Associate Professor in Law and Technology at the University of Exeter (UK) and Assistant Professor in Intellectual Property and Innovation Law at the University of Birmingham (UK).

Adam Michael Packer is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Institute for STEMM in Culture and Society (ISTEMMiCS) at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, and he is part of the ESRC Future Flight Social Science research team. He received his PhD degree from the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford. His research is broadly interested in the relationship between technology, innovation, and society, with a focus on urban governance and citizenship.

Michael Lewis is a Professor at the University of Bath School of Management. An experienced researcher, teacher, and advisor in operational and supply systems, he is the author of more than 60 journal articles and books, including the widely translated textbook, Operations Strategy, now in its 7th edition. His portfolio of activities has included a long-standing engagement with public policy: health and social care services, local government, major project initiation, public-private partnerships and, most recently, the governance of complex technologies, including unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Recent drone related publications include "A Better Way to Pilot Emerging Technologies" published in MIT Sloan Management Review in 2024.

"Future Flight Governance is the timely, rigorous, and truly interdisciplinary account this field needs. By bringing socio-legal, environmental, and economic perspectives upstream of innovation, it reframes advanced air mobility around inclusion, accountability, and sustainability rather than techno-optimism. The editors and contributors translate complex debates into actionable insight for scholars, regulators, industry, and communities. An agenda-setting volume that will shape research, policy, and practice for years to come"- Professor Guido Noto La Diega.