Correspondence

DfT and CAA update on airspace modernisation: July 2020

Updated 19 March 2021

Airspace modernisation is vital to the future of aviation, to delivering net zero and, now, to supporting the aviation sector’s recovery from the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19 pandemic).

Both the Department for Transport (DfT) and the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) are acutely aware of the effect that the pandemic is having on the sector and its ability to progress airspace changes to original plans, so the Airspace Change Organising Group’s (ACOG’s) report is timely and welcome.

As co-sponsors of airspace modernisation, the DfT and the CAA would like to thank ACOG and the organisations who contributed to the work that has gone into its Remobilising the Airspace Change Programme report over the last few weeks.

The report is insightful, thorough, and raises important questions for us to consider around the future of airspace change, and the masterplan ACOG has been working on. This masterplan will set out where airspace change could be taken forward to provide benefits, consider the potential conflicts, trade-offs and dependencies, and set out a preferred implementation plan.

Despite the current international crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the aviation industry and air traffic levels, the need to modernise the UK’s airspace design remains clear. Airspace modernisation is a critical infrastructure programme of national importance, and the potential benefits of designing the “motorways in the sky” are significant for all those who use and are affected by airspace.

Upgrading airspace is essential to open up airspace for all users, including general aviation flyers and new types of aircraft, such as drones, to provide the opportunity for reducing noise and to improve capacity for the aviation industry to reduce traffic delays when the demand returns.

Critically, the emissions savings modernisation can deliver are a key component of the UK’s commitment to reach net zero by 2050. The aviation industry’s decarbonisation roadmap suggests that air traffic management and operational improvements are likely to reduce CO₂ emissions from UK aviation by around 4.6% by 2050 relative to 2016, with the potential for additional savings from future innovations. NATS’ feasibility study into modernisation also estimates savings of up to 10-20% on fuel burn and CO₂ emissions in the south east of England, where the airspace is most congested.

In light of the pandemic, we recognise that the timescales in which airspace modernisation will take place will change. We also need to consider what changes may be required to how individual organisations progress their individual airspace changes and they will interact with NATS and ACOG.

With that in mind, the DfT and CAA are pleased to immediately accept recommendations 1, 2 and 4 in ACOG’s report, namely that we will:

• ask ACOG to establish clear protocols for: the airports that are able to resume work on airspace change, engagement with those that remain paused, and the exit process for those that decide to opt out (subject to their criticality to the programme)
• ask NERL and ACOG to work together to re-evaluate NERL’s 2018 feasibility report into airspace modernisation, specifically in order to identify the core set of airport led airspace changes that will be required in the post COVID-19 world
• in the short term, the CAA will work with ACOG to ensure that work on airspace change that can still progress does not conflict with or constrain the broader programme

The DfT and CAA will thoroughly consider the remaining recommendations in further detail given the range and scale of the options proposed. Some of the recommendations outlined in the report would require changes to existing regulation and policy and we would need to engage the sector so that we take into account sponsors’ objectives and constraints. We are conscious of the need to do this quickly given the significant amount of time and resource that sponsors have already put into their work on airspace change.

We will advise ACOG and stakeholders of our preferred approach in early autumn, allowing work on the masterplan to restart in good time.

Grant Shapps MP, Secretary of State for Transport

Richard Moriarty, Chief Executive, Civil Aviation Authority