The CAA's Airspace
Modernisation Strategy
The CAA is progressing with an Airspace Modernisation Strategy (AMS – also known as FASI-S). This is the CAA’s programme to double the number of aircraft in the UK by 2030. FNG has been attending the CAA’s consultation meetings. Lots of people have said they weren’t aware of Farnborough’s proposed change in airspace in 2014. Well, the AMS is something EVERYONE needs to be aware of. The CAA plans to use the same strategy as it did with Farnborough’s airspace, to route flightpaths over rural areas so fewer people are impacted. The CAA also wants air traffic control (NATS) to have a more “handsoff” approach so flights “communicate” directly with each other to avoid collisions. There are some
significant safety issues with this. If there is a failure in the technology, there will be aircraft flying dangerously close to each other. The recent NOTAM failure in the USA gave an indication of the risks. The CAA intends to expand the use of technology such as GPS tracking so they can compress aircraft into much tighter corridors. There are currently about 1 million flights a year from Gatwick, Heathrow, Southampton and Farnborough. Airport expansion plans aim to double that. These flights could be travelling in very tight corridors as we have seen with the change in Farnborough’s airspace. This is why some people who were previously overflown only a few times a day are now overflown more than 100 times a day as aircraft fly exactly the same track over the same people. Divide 2 million flights by 365 days and see how many flights a day it works out at and they could be put over anyone……