Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft
Bill
“An aviation bill will provide for the effective and
efficient management of the United Kingdom’s
airspace.”
The purpose of the Bill is to:
-
Maintain the UK’s position as a world-leader in aviation,
ensuring that regulations keep pace with new technology to
support sustainable growth in a sector which directly provides
over 230,000 jobs and contributes at least £22 billion to the
UK economy every year.
-
Ensure that the police are able to tackle effectively the
unlawful use of unmanned aircraft, including drones and model
aircraft.
The main benefits of the Bill would
be:
-
Making journeys quicker, quieter and cleaner through the
modernisation of our airspace.
-
Improving public safety through greater police
enforcement powers, deterring unlawful use of unmanned aircraft
and ensuring that offenders are quickly dealt with in the
appropriate manner.
The main elements of the Bill are:
-
New Government powers to direct an airport or other
relevant body to prepare and submit a proposal to the Civil
Aviation Authority to change the design of airspace.
-
Modernising the licensing framework for air traffic
control.
-
New police powers to tackle the unlawful use of unmanned
aircraft. These include the ability to require a person to land
an unmanned aircraft and enhanced stop and search powers where
particular unmanned aircraft related offences have taken
place.
Territorial extent and application
-
The Bill's provisions would extend and apply to the whole
of the UK.
-
Civil aviation (including airspace) is a reserved matter,
however, since the Bill would provide police in Scotland with
additional powers, legislative consent will likely be
required.
Key facts
-
The Department for Transport’s Strategic Case for
Airspace Modernisation, published in February 2017, set out
that if nothing is done by 2030,1 in 3 flights could be delayed
for 30 minutes on average, which would be 72 times higher than
in 2015. This would cost the UK around £250 million per year.
Modernisation can also deliver major noise and carbon reduction
benefits.
-
For a change in the design of UK airspace to take place,
proposals must be submitted by a sponsor, usually an airport or
a provider of air navigation services, and follow the Civil
Aviation Authority’s airspace change process.
-
The number of incidents of manned aircraft encountering
an unmanned aircraft increased from 6 incidents in 2014 to 125
in 2018.
