Draft procedure for reviewing the classification of airspace

1.1. The airspace in which the general aviation (GA) community operates is limited and the effect of this is that it restricts GA operations and creates ‘tunnels’ that are often narrow and frequently altitude limited. These tunnels serve to concentrate GA traffic and increase the potential risk of mid-air collision. Small aircraft owners and operators often do not have access to traffic collision avoidance systems. As such, the pilots are very focused on navigation and avoiding controlled airspace, so lookout effectiveness can be degraded. Adverse weather conditions and poor visibility increase the risk of potential mid-air collision further. Therefore, the ambition to create more available airspace for GA is welcomed.

1.2. This consultation focuses on the Secretary of State’s modification of the Civil Aviation Authority’s (CAA) responsibilities to consider, review, and amend airspace classifications. However, there is a missed opportunity to improve efficiency and access to airspace for all users. Instead the document focuses on a limited objective of ‘ensuring that the amount of controlled airspace is the minimum required’ through the delivery of a new complex process. Greater access to currently controlled airspace could be achieved, whilst also making improvements for all users. In particular, we would encourage the CAA to establish some simple principles that can be used to aid decision making.

1.3. The current proposal requires the setting up of a relatively complex and potentially costly process that has a number of fundamental hurdles:

1.3.1. Aviation has been one of the hit sectors hit hardest by the Covid-19 pandemic and its subsequent implications. There is not enough consideration over what this additional cost and resource burden will be for the stakeholders who are expected to bear the costs of this. Many of the organisations impacted have had to reduce staff numbers, expenditure and significantly change their operation. This complex process requires greater staff resource to support safety case development, provide data, advice and much more.

1.3.2. It relies on the successful passage of the ATM & Unmanned Aircraft Bill to provide the CAA with the necessary power to compel airports/Air Navigation Service Providers (ANSP) to provide monitoring data, to co-operate with the CAA in constructing a safety argument and ultimately to construct a safety case to amend their operation.

1.3.3. It requires the CAA to disapply the Section 70 criteria in applying the Air Navigation Guidance but at the same time the CAA’s proposed process seems to entail following the Section 70 criteria in order to avoid legal challenge.

1.3.4. It creates significant potential for regulatory capture on the grounds that the CAA in effect becomes the proposer of airspace change which is then also approved by the CAA.

1.3.5. At the end of a lengthy process the final proposal then goes to public consultation at which point it could run into aviation or environmental challenges, not least from the airports/airlines that will inherit the consequence of the changes.

1.4. The RAeS believe that the focus on potentially flawed layers of process will not provide the optimum outcome. Instead, the CAA should aim to establish some simple principles and fundamentals which would enable arbitration between competing airspace claims. The Society firmly believes that these principles would facilitate the achievement of outcomes which are understood by all users. Therefore, it is suggested that two basic principles should be:

1.4.1. Whenever possible, airspace will be designated to accommodate the legitimate needs and the safety of all potential users, alongside the environmental impacts.

1.4.2. When this cannot be achieved safely, priority will be afforded based on the greatest economic and societal benefit to the UK. The means of calculation will be set by the Department for Transport (DfT) with input from the CAA and reviewed periodically.

1.5. The RAeS also consider that there are alternative options to achieve the desired outcome of improving the availability of airspace for GA users. Disappointingly, these are barely touched upon in the consultation document. The UK currently has five classes of airspace. There is the opportunity to review current technology and procedures to ascertain whether those five classes meet requirements and to see if they could be simplified. This could help both GA and commercial aviation by making airspace arrangements clearer and more flexible. From a technical viewpoint it is interesting to note that some of the comments in CAP 1935 are supportive of improved electronic conspicuity as a better way of improving airspace access for the GA community.

2.1. The ‘consider’ stage seems to be reasonable and proportionate. However, it is not clear how the CAA will decide which parts of the airspace will be considered for review.

2.2. The determinant should not be heavily based on reports from airspace users and there should be independent data used as part of this. With the amount of surveillance data available and the growing use of algorithms and artificial intelligence, the CAA should establish evidence-based criteria to determine whether a particular area of airspace needs to be considered for review. This issue needs to be clarified with further information about the data sources that will be used.

2.3. Having considered the list of candidate areas identified in CAP 1935, it seems highly unlikely that the CAA would reach a ‘No’ decision for some time to come. It is not clear what happens if the CAA’s position (i.e. a ‘No’ decision) meets significant challenge from stakeholders or the DfT.

2.4. As with the whole process, there remains a question as to whether the CAA currently has sufficient resources to meet the workload likely to be generated and this is a theme that is consistently referred to with caution. In short, the decision to review a piece of airspace should be based on the principles outlined above and not on the basis of CAA workload and resources.

2.5. The two-year period seems somewhat arbitrary and does not take into account the fact that external triggers for airspace classification changes e.g. adjustments to ICAO SARPS, may not fit into this timescale. It would be helpful to understand how the two-year period was identified as the most appropriate timescale.

3.1 The success of the Review Stage will be wholly dependent upon the CAA’s ability to access pertinent and relevant information on the utilisation of airspace. This capability does not currently exist and will be dependent upon the willingness and financial capability of airports/ANSPs to provide the necessary data. It is not clear whether the ATM & Unmanned Aircraft Bill will provide the CAA with the necessary power to compel airports/ANSPs to provide the data. Indeed, the RAeS believe that those providing a service within the airspace should also be consulted, as airspace users do not always have a full understanding of what happens in the airspace around them and the reasons behind its construction.

3.2. The RAeS supports the use of outputs from continuous monitoring of airspace safety, access or utilisation as a basis for drawing up plans that list airspace volumes. However, further detail is needed on the independent data sources that will be used, particularly as it is noted that the CAA only has limited resources to buy data (5.6) which is followed by 5.11 which notes the CAA has limited resource to analyse data.

3.3. Encouraging greater use of the Use of UK Airspace Report (CAA Form FCS 1521) would be welcomed, as it is understood that previous utilisation of this form has been extremely poor with very few submissions to the CAA from the GA user community, other than for short periods following a particular awareness campaign initiated by the CAA or GA representative organisations.

3.4. As mentioned earlier, the entire focus of the proposal seems to be on the removal of current Controlled Airspace (CAS). There should be a greater emphasis on the changing of classification, improved access rules or raising airspace bases or lateral dimensions to better accommodate the needs of all users. Not adopting a flexible approach to airspace usage and classification is a major hindrance in terms of achieving optimum efficiency. This should be reconsidered from a holistic perspective that considers pilot training, pilot currency, mapping and charting, notification and electronic conspicuity.

3.5. A piecemeal approach to considering individual elements of controlled airspace is flawed. There are invariably knock-on impacts of any change in CAS boundaries and, as a consequence, the CAA should consider the review in terms of clusters/areas of airspace. Precisely how these clusters/areas could be defined would need further consideration, however, traffic flows (both Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) and Visual Flight Rules (VFR)), military activity, choke points, geographic features, terrain and environmental impacts would all need to be assessed before determining the boundaries of a cluster/area. In some cases it might be straightforward to do a single change in a remote, less heavily utilised/inhibited parts of the UK. In others it might be more appropriate to consider, for example, a quadrant of the London Terminal Manoeuvring Area (LTMA).

3.6. The point made in paragraph 5.36 is important as it may well be that as a consequence of a detailed review it may be determined that more, not less, restrictive airspace arrangements are necessary to maintain safety and efficiency.

4.1. Both the Review and Amend stages as proposed are labour intensive for the CAA and will require proper resourcing to be implemented effectively. How this will be funded is not entirely clear but this is evidently a high priority objective for the DfT and so, no doubt, funds can be found. Greater information is needed about how this is determined and the potential sums.

4.2. The flexible use of airspace is an important area to evaluate and could provide greater access for GA to areas previously not available (6.1) and prove to be a valuable tool. However, greater consideration is needed on this topic, as there could be challenges with the communication of areas that are only available at certain times and an evaluation of the safety aspect. As referenced in our response to Question 1, there are varying levels of equipment available to general aviation pilots. The greater use of electronic conspicuity could serve to enhance safety in a flexible airspace scenario.

4.3. Paragraphs 6.27 to 6.34 refer to the various options that should be considered (lateral/vertical dimensions, controlled airspace volume/classification, enabling flexible access and the ‘do nothing’ option). All of these criteria should be considered as important and essential parts of any new process and enabling flexible access and the ‘do nothing’ option should not be discounted as a possible outcomes. Detailed analysis of any proposal or piece of airspace always has the possibility of exposing previously unknown data.

4.4. The Secretary of State’s decision to instruct the CAA to disapply the Section 70 requirements (On environmental aspects) results in the CAA effectively reproducing the Section 70 criteria without the obligations around the process. If a legal review of this decision has not yet been sought, it is recommended to do so in order to avoid the risk of a legal challenge for failing to comply with environmental guidelines.

4.5. The suggestion that the CAA should write the safety argument (6.36) and then assist in the creation and delivery of the safety case and operational procedures is fundamentally wrong and runs the risk of regulatory capture. This element should be amended to require the airport/ANSP to prepare the relevant safety and operational material and to process the change through the CAA for regulatory approval. The liability issues associated with a procedure staffed and initiated by the CAA, that the airport/ANSP has the responsibility to execute and deliver, is at odds with the principle of a clear separation of service provision and regulation. In the event of a subsequent incident this process has the potential to leave both parties exposed, particularly in a situation where the airport/operator was not supportive of the change in the first place.

4.6. Finally, the public consultation at the end of the Amend stage could lead to further issues that need to be addressed or which make implementation impracticable within the desired timeline. This is a long and protracted process that has the potential to result in a stalemate.

5.1. The Royal Aeronautical Society is a professional membership organisation and therefore will not be financially impacted by the process proposed. However, it will have a financial impact on some of the organisations that our members work for, or own, and our corporate partners.

5.2. The International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) recent figures show that global passenger traffic will not return to pre-COVID-19 levels until 2024 . The aviation sector is, and has been, facing unprecedented challenges in the wake of the pandemic. Throughout the supply chain, organisations such as ANSPs and airports have been forced to make tough decisions on financials, how they operate and staffing, the effects of which will be felt for years to come. The proposal set out needs to take into greater account the additional cost and time associated with this complex programme and where this will be borne. The view that the cost is not expected to be great underestimates the work that goes into producing the additional data that will be required with reduced workforces and also providing advice and expertise in financially constrained operations.

5.3. There will undoubtedly be costs associated with this proposed process. However, quantifying them with any degree of accuracy may prove to be difficult, as they will be dependent upon many factors (size/scale of change, types of equipment involved, size/scale of organisation etc). What is clear is that the costs to the ANSPs and airports for procedure design and safety cases will not be insignificant. Costs for the CAA may be easier to determine in terms of the numbers of additional resources it will require to deliver the function as envisaged but harder to determine the cost of access to data.

5.4. The limited scope of this consultation, particularly when the costs are likely to derive from on the en-route charge, shows the flaws in not considering the principles of designing airspace to accommodate the legitimate needs and the safety of all potential users, alongside the environmental impacts. Instead, it seems to focus on the narrow aim of ‘seeking to ensure that the amount of controlled airspace is the minimum required to maintain a high standard of air safety’ through the delivery of a complex and costly process; the desired outcome of which could have been realised through a number of different ways put forward.