Frequently Asked Questions: Drone Operators

A zone manager is an organisation entrusted with the responsibility of managing controlled airspace or a designated airspace ‘zone’. Their role involves overseeing and ensuring the proper management of these areas. 

Landowners manage the approval of land access ‘zones’. 

Certain administrative procedures must be followed whenever approval is needed for accessing controlled airspace or land for safe take-off and landing. The zone manager can charge a fee to cover the service provided for managing these administrative tasks.

Zone rate cards are created by the Airspace Controller or Landowner associated with the zone area. These vary from zone to zone and are completely owned by the zone operator. Altitude Angel has no influence over any rates set by a zone operator.

Your payment card is authorised at the time the flight request is submitted, however, the card is only charged once approval is given.

Primarily there are two main zone types – one for land access, the other covering airspace access. 

For land access, usually fees apply only for accessing a private landowner’s property and not over-flying, so the service fee applied will relate to the point of take-off and landing. 

The fees for the services offered by airspace zones are calculated cumulatively to determine the total amount. Prior to submitting for approval, each zone fee is clearly presented to drone operators, providing an opportunity to make adjustments to the flight plan if desired.

Once you receive approval from a zone manager and make the payment, it is important to note that refunds cannot be given if you decide to cancel your plan as the approval service has already been provided. In situations where your operation cannot proceed as initially intended, we recommend considering plan modifications rather than outright cancellations.

In the event that a zone, for which you have obtained approval, needs to withdraw the approval prior to the scheduled operation, an automatic full refund for the flight plan will be provided, regardless of whether other intersecting zones have granted their approval. The refund is provided back to the payment card that you used to pay for your plan, and you will receive an email confirming this. The refund will show in your bank account between 5-10 days after the refund is processed.  

 
Please note, your whole flight plan will now be cancelled, including any other approval zones connected to the plan. You will need to resubmit a new plan to regain the required approvals.

Currently we do not support subscription services directly, however some zones do offer ongoing permit options. 

Payment is collected on behalf of the owner of the zone/s you are requesting approval from.  Payment is taking directly from within the flight planning platforms, Drone Assist, Drone Safety Map or Operator Portal using Stripe .

Payment is made through Stripe, which supports many cards, bank debits, bank transfers, bank redirects and payment services. This includes the most widely accepted cards such as Visa, Mastercard and American Express and many more. We do not currently support Wallet payments such as Apple Pay, Google Pay or AliPay through Stripe.

When submitting a flight plan that requires digital authorisation, you will be kept up to date via email communications at every event, or status change. This could include Action Required comments from the zone manager, which may result in you needing to edit your plan. You also receive a receipt on completion of your flight plan. 

 
If you have submitted via the Drone Assist mobile app, you will additionally receive comments that are shown against your plan in the app itself. 

No credit card details are held by Altitude Angel or the zone manager. The payment pre-authorisation is performed within Stripe and Altitude Angel has no access to, nor retains, the payment details of drone operators.

We use Stripe as our payment gateway. Stripe is certified as a Level 1 Service Provider, which is the highest level of certification for payment processors. Stripe complies with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS), a set of security standards established by major card brands like Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. This compliance ensures that Stripe maintains a secure environment for handling payment data.

When you create a flight plan that requires approval services, you will be presented with the payment gateway, Stripe. At this point, you have the option to edit your card, add new cards or delete existing cards.

There are several reasons why a customer's card could be declined, for example: Payment Declined, Card Restrictions or Location. In most instances, Altitude Angel has no control, as these transactions are facilitated by our payment gateway supplier Stripe, who reviews the payment directly with your bank.  

We recommend contacting your bank in the first instance to understand why your payment may have failed and they should be able to assist and help you to continue your payment with us.

VAT receipts are sent to the email address used to register your account with Altitude Angel.

If you have lost your receipts and need a copy, you can easily obtain one by reaching out to our support team at hello@altitudeangel.com. They will be able to assist you in reissuing a copy of the lost receipt. Please provide them with relevant details, such as your name, account details and the date of the transaction, along with any other information that can help them locate the receipt in their records.

It is not possible to edit your invoice/receipt details once they have been generated and issued. Invoices and receipts are legally binding documents that represent a record of a transaction or purchase and altering them after issuance could lead to inaccuracies or potential legal issues.

Altitude Angel facilitates the payment between you and the zone you are seeking approval for. As such, on your card statements you will see the transaction details listed as ‘Altitude Angel Reading GB’.