An architecture for facilitating smart physical cell identity (PCI) configuration for aerial network equipment that can used in terrestrial 4G and/or 5G LTE wireless networking paradigms. A method can comprise: receiving, from core network equipment, an instruction to travel from a first geographic location to a second geographic location, wherein the second geographic location has been determined, by the core network equipment, as representing a hotspot location; traveling from the first geographic location to the hotspot location; based on crossing a boundary associated with the hotspot location, initiating execution of a user equipment relay process that transitions the aerial user equipment from being user equipment to being aerial network equipment; and transmitting to the core network equipment that the user equipment relay process has been successfully initiated.