2 February 2016
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has launched two consultations on increases to the charges it makes.
The first consultation affects the whole aviation industry and contains proposed amendments to the CAA Schemes of Charges, planned to be effective from 1 June 2016. The consultation started yesterday (1 February 2016), when the document was released, and will finish on 4 April. It can be downloaded here: http://www.caa.co.uk/Our-work/Consultations/Open/CAA-statutory-charges/
“The main pricing strategy for 2016-17 is to maintain the 2016-17 target operating costs at 2015-16 budgeted levels with charges remaining at current levels overall,” said the CAA.
The second consultation contains proposed amendments to air display charges which have been separated out from the above. It covers Flying Displays, Display Authorisations for pilots and Low Flying Permissions. The proposal is for charges to increase by 100% for all of these. There will also be a new “Post-event Charge” based on the number of items which actually flew at an event.
The CAA wants to introduce the new charges from 1 April 2016, in time for the 2016 air display season. So the consultation on air display charges will be pushed through much quicker. Start date was yesterday, finish date 29 February 2016. The document can be downloaded here: http://www.caa.co.uk/Our-work/Consultations/Open/Statutory-air-display-and-low-flying-permission-charges/
“Detailed work on the time and effort dedicated to the regulation of Flying Displays, Display Authorisations for pilots and Low Flying Permissions for the year ending March 2015, shows that we are continuing to significantly under recover our costs in this area,” said the CAA.
Also, there are actions following last August’s accident at the Shoreham Airshow which will add to the CAA’s costs, it said. The CAA estimates an extra £250,000 of costs.
“Consequently, the air display charges are proposed to increase significantly for the larger events on a sliding scale pending a full review of the changing regulatory requirements and effect on charges in time for industry consultation for the 2017-18 Scheme.”
Many in the air display industry are unhappy about the increases, suggesting that it will kill off many smaller events.
