Panel Discussion: Blueprint for Running an Enterprise Drone Program

  • NestGen ’26
  • Docks
  • Regulations
  • Oil & Gas

October 2, 2026 · 49 min

In this NestGen '26 panel, Jean from Skeye, Julie from ABOT, and Achal from FlytBase discuss what it actually takes to build and scale an enterprise drone program, from the first dock to multi-country operations. The conversation covers the full lifecycle. Jean shares how Skeye went from two flights a week to fifty a day at a refinery in the port of Rotterdam, starting with tank roof inspections for safety and expanding into perimeter checks, piping integrity, and gauge reading. Julie brings the perspective of deploying across multiple regulatory environments, from France to Belgium to West Africa, where the rules change at every border even within the EU. The discussion gets into why some programs scale while others stall after a successful pilot, the role of trust and how long it takes to build with a customer who has zero tolerance for incidents, working inside ATEX zones, cross-border regulatory fragmentation, and why the technology can be standardized far more easily than the operational and compliance framework around it.