| Synopsis: |
The Government's Future of Air Transport strategy aims to significantly increase UK airport capacity over the next two decades to accommodate the predicted growth in demand for air travel. New runways at Heathrow and Stansted airports are two of the key airport development proposals. If all the White Paper-supported airport development proposals came to fruition, current Government forecasts predict that the number of passengers passing through UK airports will increase from 241 million passengers a year in 2007 to 455 million passengers a year in 2030. This UK growth matches air traffic predictions for the whole continent. Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, predicts that European air traffic will double by 2020. If rising demand for air travel is to be met effectively through additional airport capacity, a corresponding increase in airspace capacity must be realised. However, a country's airspace, the portion of atmosphere above its territory and territorial waters, controlled by that country is a finite resource. UK airspace, particularly in the South East of England, is already some of the busiest and most complex to manage in the world.This will almost certainly require improvements in the efficiency of the UK air traffic management system. The Committee's inquiry aims to look at how to meet these challenges. Its findings are aimed at those organisations responsible for airspace-related decisions in the UK: the CAA, NATS, and the Department for Transport. Passenger numbers and freight demand globally have declined in 2008 and in the first months of 2009. In its conclusions and recommendations the Committee covered the management of airspace, strategy, change and co-ordination in airspace management, environmental impacts of airspace changes and European developments. |