Denmark has selected Terma to deliver a nationwide counter-drone command-and-control system that fuses existing and future sensors into a shared real-time picture for the armed forces and other authorities. Separately, Danish firms are working with Destinus on a naval version of the Hornet interceptor. The ambition is a coherent national layer rather than isolated site defences. That choice matters for airports, because drones do not stop at the airport boundary.
Most airports still buy detection and, where permitted, mitigation tools as standalone products. A radar or radio-frequency sensor covers the immediate approach paths and perimeter. When a contact appears, the response depends on local procedures, police or military support, and legal authority that often differs between civil and defence zones. The system works until the drone arrives from outside the sensor bubble, loiters just beyond the fence, or crosses from civilian into restricted airspace faster than the local chain can react. Each airport effectively defends its own patch.
A national network starts from a different premise. Sensors across the country feed a common picture. Threats can be tracked before they reach an airport or critical site. Authority to act whether by electronic means, interception or kinetic effect, can be pre-assigned rather than improvised during the event. Airports become nodes in a wider system instead of isolated fortresses. Denmark’s approach explicitly aims at military installations, airports, ports and energy infrastructure under one situational layer.
The practical limits remain. Sensors still have to be dense enough. Neutralisation near busy runways is constrained by safety and spectrum rules. Data sharing between civil aviation, police and defence requires clear governance. Yet the alternative, every airport procuring its own incomplete shield, has already shown its weakness in repeated closures and uncertain responses across Europe and beyond. Drones exploit gaps between jurisdictions. A national surveillance and command architecture is one way to close those gaps instead of leaving each terminal to manage the risk alone.
Airports should watch the Danish experiment closely. The question is no longer only which counter-drone box to buy. It is whether detection, tracking and authority to act can be organised at the scale of the threat rather than the scale of the airport fence.