UKADS takes off.

By Chris Weatherburn – Associate Director

Airspace change has been firmly on the agenda for a few years, with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) setting a challenge to the UK’s airports in 2018 to work with Government and the CAA to modernise the way air traffic is managed.  

Most airspace was designed decades ago, when there were around 200,000 flights per year. In 2024 there were 2.7 million flights, with far more sophisticated aircraft and navigation systems to now take advantage of. Modernising airspace gives the UK the opportunity to improve efficiency, reducing delays and some of the negative effects associated with airports like noise and CO2 emissions. 

Changes  

In June this year, Mike Kane MP, Minster for Aviation, Maritime and Security, announced ‘the largest redesign of UK airspace since it was first formed in the 1950s, with the Government’s intention to set up a new UK Airspace Design Service (UKADS) to provide a UK-wide ‘guiding mind’ for airspace.   

This announcement means that UKADS will be responsible for airspace change proposals across whole regions and is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2025. The new service will be paid for by an additional levy on airspace users, primarily the airlines which use the airspace, and will sit within NATS En Route Ltd (NERL, the UK’s leading provider of air traffic control services).  

It is a departure from the existing ‘Process for Changing the Notified Airspace Design’ (known as CAP1616), where individual airports currently take responsibility for sponsoring proposals to change their own airspace and managing the entire process themselves.  

In the future, it is also hoped that UKADS will be able to consider routes and flight paths for innovative technologies such as drone deliveries as has been seen in the U.S., or even flying taxis.  

London First  

UKADS’ first major task is to develop a single airspace change proposal for London, home to the UK’s largest Terminal Control Area (TMA), encompassing eleven airports. These range from smaller airports such as Biggin Hill and Farnborough, to major international gateways such as Southend, Luton, Stansted, and London City. 

Gatwick and Heathrow, London’s busiest airports have over 2,000 arrivals and departures between them per day, and both share aspirations for growth, with Government announcing their backing for Heathrow expansion earlier this year. UKADS will have to plan for both their existing airspace changes, but also have an eye on the future, and any potential increase in flights.  

This month, the CAA published CAP 3129 which sets out the onboarding process for bringing together the existing airspace change proposals from the eleven London cluster airports and NATS into a single, unified proposal for the London TMA. This requires each airport to submit all relevant technical data, local design considerations, and any commitments already made to stakeholders, ensuring that the new UKADS provider (NATS) has a comprehensive understanding of both operational and community priorities. The CAA will oversee this transition, publishing a new London TMA Region Single ACP on the Airspace Change Portal and making public the Partner Specific Design Factors (PSDF) that reflect local needs and previous commitments. 

Challenges  

 A unified approach to airspace design offers clear benefits: streamlined operations, fewer delays, and reduced environmental impacts. But it also raises important questions about how local communities factor into plans.  

Airports have built strong relationships with their communities over a number of years through consultation, engagement, and collaboration. UKADS must now ensure that these voices continue to be heard. Balancing the competing specific design factors and community priorities from different airports across a large geographic area will necessitate compromise. Effective, early, transparent, and ongoing engagement and consultation will be essential to building public trust and delivering a future-ready airspace system which gains public confidence, not just regulatory approval.