Airport News

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and Irish Aviation Authority Safety Regulation Division (IAA SRD) have today jointly published a draft performance plan for air navigation services (air traffic control) between 2015 and 2019.

The draft plan has been developed as part of the second reference period of the EU’s Single European Sky (SES) performance scheme, which is an initiative to improve performance of air navigation services across Europe. This scheme focuses on four key areas: capacity, cost efficiency, environment and safety, with overarching EU-wide targets for each area.

The scheme requires each Functional Airspace Block (FAB) – areas of airspace grouped by European regions rather than individual states – to develop plans on how providers of air navigation services will improve performance between 2015 and 2019 and therefore contribute to the EU-wide targets.

The CAA and IAA SRD have developed the joint plan for the UK-Ireland FAB. This includes challenging targets for air navigation service providers to meet on the four key performance areas. The draft plan is now out for consultation, with stakeholders invited to submit comments by 4 April 2014.

Following the consultation, the plan must be agreed by both the UK and Irish governments, before it can be submitted to the European Commission. All FAB performance plans must then be submitted to the European Commission by 30 June 2014 and if accepted, will apply from 1 January 2015 onwards.

The joint CAA and IAA SRD consultation document is available here. Other documents relating to the draft performance plan are also available here.

For more information, please contact the CAA press office on 020 7453 6030 or press.office@caa.co.uk. Follow the CAA on Twitter @UK_CAA.