Farnborough Airport airspace change proposal

Framework briefing held with organisations considering proposal of the change

• Framework briefing minutes 1 (15 June 2012)
• Framework briefing minutes 2 (15 February 2013)
• Framework briefing minutes 3 (24 July 2013)
• Update presentation (14 November 2014
• Timeline 2013-2017

Sponsor external consultation document (with associated appendices)

• Introduction and overview
• Proposed changes below 4,000ft in the vicinity of Farnborough Airport
• Proposed changes between 4,000ft and 7,000ft further away from Farnborough Airport
• Proposed changes between 2,500ft and 7,000ft in the vicinity of Southampton and Bournemouth
• Aviation technical information
• Appendices

In assessing the proposal and making the decision, the CAA has taken account of the following documents received from the sponsor:

1. (Option 25) Consultation documents - Parts A-F, dated 3 February 2014
2. Feedback report Part A
3. Feedback report Part B
4. (Option 34) Issue 1.0, dated 3 July 2015
5. Appendix A - Comms, Nav and Surveillance
6. Appendix B - Safety in the Vicinity of Farnborough Airport
7. Appendix C - CAS Containment and Separation
8. Appendix D - Real Time Simulation
9. Appendix E - AIP Pages Affected
10.  Appendix F - Fuel, CO2, Air Quality
11.   Appendix G - Flight Validation
12.  Appendix H - PDG
13.  Appendix I - Letter of Agreement Drafts
14.  Appendix J - Stakeholder Reengagement Examples
15.  Appendix K - Consultation (see a, b and c above)
16.  Appendix L - Disruption and Delay examples
17.  Appendix M - Heathrow SID Gradients
18.  Appendix N - GA Levels Analysis
19.  Appendix O - Concept of Operations
20.  Farnborough Airport Additional Consultation (Option 36), dated 10 August 2016
21.  TAG Farnborough Feedback Report Part C (Option 38)
22.  Letter Sponsor to CAA dated 4 September 2017 regarding airspace access arrangements

Sponsor's Post-Implementation Review analysis

1. Main document 
2. Annex A
3. Annex B
4. Annex C 
5. Annex D
6. Appendix to Annex D
7. Annex E v1.0
8. Annex E v1.1

CAA PIR assessment

Updated 10 May 2024: 

The change sponsor has produced a revised version of Annex E of its Post-Implementation Review analysis which corrects some errors in Section 5 and includes a new Section 7 relating to controller’s use of controlled airspace and additional radar data analysis. This can be found in the Sponsor's Post-Implementation Review analysis section of the table below as ‘Annex E v1.1’.

The CAA has continued to work with the sponsor and the key other airspace users in that part of southern England and fundamental airspace sharing arrangements are still being developed and reviewed to enable the best use of the airspace to be developed. These arrangements will seek to safely and efficiently accommodate aviation stakeholder’s requirements.

You can keep abreast of further developments by monitoring the updates and associated documentation on our website or by signing up to SkyWise news alerts.

Updated 5 October 2023: The Post-Implementation Review (PIR) work continues. Following the closure of the CAA’s 42-day feedback window, additional stakeholder responses continued to be received and are being included in the review. 

CAP1616 Appendix H, Post-implementation Review timescales indicate that at H7 (page 241), additional analysis of data and any need for the CAA to request further operational data from the change sponsor, may result in an extension to the analysis and delay the publication of the results of the review in its report.

Updated 15 May 2023: The Post-Implementation Review (PIR) data has now been received from the sponsor and published. They can be found in the table below under 'Sponsor's Post-Implementation Review analysis'.

The CAA now invite any stakeholders to submit their own observations via email to Airspace.Policy@caa.co.uk no later than Monday, 26 June 2023.

The CAA will aim to produce a PIR review report within three months.

This activity is not a review of the decision on the airspace change proposal, and neither is it a re-run of the original decision process.

Upon completion of the CAA’s review, we may:

• confirm that the implemented design satisfactorily achieves – within acceptable tolerance limits – the objective and terms of the CAA’s approval, and the change is confirmed; or
• require modifications to better achieve the objective and terms of the CAA’s approval

Updated 3 April 2023: The PIR data collection period finished on 31 March 2023. The sponsor must now analyse the data it has collected and prepare a detailed analysis of how the impacts of the change compare with the anticipated impacts set out in the airspace change proposal. For reasons including public holidays over the Easter period the sponsor has requested 42 rather than the usual 28 days to complete and publish its PIR data and the analysis of it required by CAP 1616. We have agreed to that request.

Taking into account that stakeholders may have planned for a specific window for providing their comments on whether implementation of the change has had the impacts that were anticipated when the decision to agree the change was made, we have decided also to expand the stakeholder feedback window from 28 to 42 days.

Updated 26 September 2022: Due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on air operations around the globe, the commencement of the 12 month data collection period for the purpose of this PIR was delayed until 1 April 2022.  The CAA’s ACP Post Implementation Review Data Request was provided to the sponsor, which the sponsor published on its web page. 

The PIR will follow the process set out in CAP 1616. However, as this ACP decision was made under the former airspace change process, CAP 725, we will use the methodology that applied at the time of the original decision when assessing the expected impacts against the actual impacts. This means we will use the Secretary of State’s Air Navigation Guidance 2014, as agreed with the Department for Transport. 

Post implementation reviews are a rigorous assessment by the CAA of whether the anticipated impacts and benefits, set out in the original airspace change proposal and decision, have been delivered and if not to ascertain why and to determine the most appropriate course of action. 

The CAA’s review will include an assessment of aircraft using Farnborough airport, of aircraft using the airspace that was the subject of the change and of aircraft flying in the vicinity of the airspace that was the subject of the change. The CAA has specified data requirements for the PIR that will enable that assessment. 

The CAA has received specific queries from stakeholders and confirms: 

• safety is the CAA’s primary statutory duty and the CAA will be carefully reviewing the PIR data to assess the impact of the new airspace design on safety; and 
• the CAA will also be assessing the impact of the change on noise based on an analysis of the number, type and height of aircraft on which data has been collected by the sponsor as required by the CAA.