Mavic Air 2 is a "legacy drone" in European Union, which kind of annoys me a bit. I made a thread on the DJI forum to describe my stand on this issue (direct quote of the opening message):
DJI decided to make Mavic Air 2 a compliant drone in US, Japan, China ... but not in EU. This probably means that DJI considers European Union a marginal market for their products. Somebody may argue that Air 2 is still compliant in Europe in A3 airspace but that argument counts very little to most pilots who live in populated areas. For most pilots, an Air 2 is very close to a paper weight.
In retrospective, DJI could have implemented RID in the beginning of Air 2 active production or selling period. DJI even demonstrated their RID technology in some international drone working group meeting in Canada around that time. DJI could (and in my opinion should) have declared Air 2 as a C1 drone at that time (not waiting until the end of the transition period of the EU drone regulations). The fact that DJI hesitated to make this strategic decision (when it was time for it) makes me think that DJI is a company led by lawyers - lawyers coming from the country where objects may be closer than they appear
It seems to me that EU is a marginal market to DJI. They could have made Air 2 a C1 drone in EU if they had the will. Now that there are some legislative initiatives in the USA against DJI products, this attitude seems a bit funny to me. Anyway, as long as DJI considers Mavic Air 2 as a compliant C1 drone in their "before-you-fly" instructions in DJI Fly app (they do it in today's version of DJI Fly), there is hope that DJI reconsiders its decision regarding Mavic Air 2 and C1 category in EU ...
DJI decided to make Mavic Air 2 a compliant drone in US, Japan, China ... but not in EU. This probably means that DJI considers European Union a marginal market for their products. Somebody may argue that Air 2 is still compliant in Europe in A3 airspace but that argument counts very little to most pilots who live in populated areas. For most pilots, an Air 2 is very close to a paper weight.
In retrospective, DJI could have implemented RID in the beginning of Air 2 active production or selling period. DJI even demonstrated their RID technology in some international drone working group meeting in Canada around that time. DJI could (and in my opinion should) have declared Air 2 as a C1 drone at that time (not waiting until the end of the transition period of the EU drone regulations). The fact that DJI hesitated to make this strategic decision (when it was time for it) makes me think that DJI is a company led by lawyers - lawyers coming from the country where objects may be closer than they appear
It seems to me that EU is a marginal market to DJI. They could have made Air 2 a C1 drone in EU if they had the will. Now that there are some legislative initiatives in the USA against DJI products, this attitude seems a bit funny to me. Anyway, as long as DJI considers Mavic Air 2 as a compliant C1 drone in their "before-you-fly" instructions in DJI Fly app (they do it in today's version of DJI Fly), there is hope that DJI reconsiders its decision regarding Mavic Air 2 and C1 category in EU ...