Conference on ‘Future Aerodrome Safety Rules’ (photo: EASA).
Conference on the ‘Future Aerodrome Safety Rules’
After publishing the Notice of Proposed Amendments (NPA) in December 2011, the related public consultation, during which a total of some comments were made, lasted until the end-April 2012. Subsequently, in May 2012, the Airport Section hosted a conference on the ‘Future Aerodrome Safety Rules’. Over 200 representatives of airports, national aviation authorities and stakeholder associations attended. Besides listening to the presentations given by EASA staff and external speakers, the conference attendees were asked to contribute their knowledge during workshops on technical matters concerning the draft rules. For further information, the conference material and presentations can be viewed here: http://easa.europa.eu/events -> Past events -> 21-22/05/2012 EASA Conference on Future Aerodrome Rules.
Review Process
Following the end of the consultation period, the comments – which mainly focused on definitions, certifications, changes, and personnel requirements – had to be reviewed and responded to. Comments were also reviewed in four thematic group meetings in June 2012 for all areas of the NPA, i.e. the draft regulation and Part ‘Authority Requirements’ (AR), Part ‘Organisation Requirements’ (OR), Part ‘Operations Requirements’ (OPS), and the Books ‘Certification Specifications’ (CS) and ‘Guidance Material’ (GM). The meetings included representatives of the competent authorities, airports and ATM/aerodrome associations. In order to obtain a “fresh” view on the subject matters, the meetings were attended by some experts of the original rulemaking working group and some new ones close to the process. The review meetings were successful and supported the Airport Section in treating the comments and helped to decide on some changes to the rules.
As an overview, it can be reported that about 40% were agreed or partially agreed and some 40% were noted, whereas some 20% could not be followed. For detailed information please refer to the diagram. Here, the statuses of responses are shown by document types. More explanation on that will be given in the soon to be published EASA Comment Response Document (CRD).
Figure 1: Status of Responses by Document Types (Janßen 2012).
International Conference on Future Aerodrome Rules in European Union, Croatia
In October 2012, the Croatian Civil Aviation Agency and EASA organised the “International Conference on Future Aerodrome Rules in European Union”. The conference was held in Croatia and brought together about 100 representatives of national aviation authorities, aerodrome operators and the aviation industry. As Gernot Kessler declared in a statement at the conference, the goal was to “to clarify, observe and perceive participants’ opinions on proposed draft rules, as well as to present feedback and reviews received so far”. This was fully achieved and the conference as such is evidence for the interest of the EU candidate countries in the future rules for aerodrome safety.
Work in Progress
Currently, the Airport Section is working on getting the CRD published soon. After CRD publication the stakeholders will have a chance to review the responses and consequences on the rules themselves.
The Airport Section is very thankful for the high-quality participations during the conferences and meetings of 2012. It is very important to combine the knowledge of all experts in order to achieve the goal of proportionate and harmonised European rules on aerodrome safety.
Based on all the inputs provided also during the formal consultation process, the Airport Section is confident that the draft future rules could be fine-tuned further and the stakeholders’ concerns duly accommodated.
For more information on the NPA and soon CDR please visit:
http://easa.europa.eu/atm.
