UK GA – The Foundation of a Vibrant Aviation Sector

UK aviation will only be sustained for the good of national economic, defence and leisure interests if there is an active and vibrant General Aviation (GA) sector at its core.

Throughout the history of UK aviation, many of key innovations and developments have been spawned by GA. In war and peace, the GA sector and the associated interests that it catalyses in aviation have been a major source of the pilots, engineers, controllers and multiplicity of functions that sustain operations and keep them airborne.

GA covers the widest spectrum of aviation of any sector from training and private flying to specialist support for police and ambulance, to gliding, ballooning, helicopters and parachuting, air taxi and business aviation. Of the 21,000 UK registered aircraft[1], over 90% are in the GA sector!

Watching air shows is the second largest outdoor pursuit after association football. A CAA study in 2006 valued the contribution of GA to the UK economy at £1.4 billion while boosting employment. Yet this core foundation of UK aviation is under a joint threat from the EU and a UK Government which see aviation as an environmental pariah (despite the fact that total UK Aviation only accounts for 3% of CO2) and GA a small fraction of that. The UK Government fails to recognise the important contribution of GA, whilst the overarching, ‘one size fits all’ regulatory approach of the EU and the new European safety regulator, EASA, is having a very negative impact on the GA sector.

Moreover, the UK government remains alone in Europe in imposing VAT on flying training! The consequence is a loss of business and opportunity for UK flying training schools, widely accepted as amongst the best in the world

The new Regulation (EC) No.300/2008 of the European Parliament will apply to all airports or parts of airports located in the UK and “all operators” providing services at these airports. It “establishes common rules to protect civil aviation against acts of unlawful interference that jeopardise the security of civil aviation,” i.e. security. But it defines civil aviation as “any air operation carried out by civil aircraft, excluding operations carried out by State aircraft referred to in Article 3 of the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation”.  At face value, the new rules apply to both a Citation transporting a captain of industry to Zurich and a GrobG109B taking off from a gliding site.  The GA industry has asked the European Parliament to apply these regulations only to airports that have paved runways longer than 1,000m and aircraft weighing over 5,700kg.  Without such exemptions, both (EC) No.300/2008 and Eurocontrol’s proposed ‘standardised European Rules of the Air’ will place GA under further massive negative pressure.

Furthermore, EASA seems to have turned against further consultations on rulemaking.  Because the responses from a large number of industry bodies have caused the timescales for the implementation of  new regulations to slip, as all new rulemaking proposals must be accompanied by a Comment Response Document.  Consequently EASA’s response has been to propose discontinuing the Comment Response Document rather than admit that the proposed rules might be flawed.

Reading regulatory proposals from EASA and similar agencies leaves a distinct impression that Brussels prefers a clean and tidy European airspace where aircraft know their place rather than meeting the requirements of real people, with real human and transport needs. The EC has been allowed to assume responsibility for UK airspace with limited recognition of the specialist GA interests and requirements.  The consequence is a regime that appears to identify problems which don’t really exist, which reaches decisions that are wholly disproportionate to the problem and which focus on process rather than securing the right outcome. The result is legislation that is both wrong and detrimental to UK, the interests of aviation, society and the economy.  A particular case was the grounding of the GA fleet during the recent volcanic ash cloud event, even though for the majority GA piston engine fleet there was no risk and the evidence for grounding the rest of the fleet had no empirical basis.

The Air League recognises that responsibility for UK airspace now rests with Europe, but that does not prevent it from seeking a more pragmatic approach to regulatory oversight. This should allow all airspace users, including GA as the industry core foundation, to be heard and its legitimate interests recognised such that a much more positive response is taken to legitimate concerns across the whole aviation spectrum.

[1] Source CAA Aircraft Registration January 2010