The Department for Transport has updated the Air Navigation Guidance (ANG) used by the Civil Aviation Authority when balancing noise, emissions and community well-being against aviation demands. Despite only 9% of consultation responses being from the aviation industry, the DfT has systematically skewed the changes so that the 2026 ANG avoids the need to take a fair and balanced approach to adverse impacts such as noise and air quality.
Balancing noise and emissions
The single most contested question in the consultation was where the balance should sit between low-level noise and flight efficiency. Despite the majority of consultation responses rejecting a proposal to reduce noise priority from 7,000 to just 4,000ft the DfT’s decision was to move the proposed threshold from 4,000ft to 5,000ft. It describes this as having been reached “following consultation feedback.” This is doublespeak, and the result is that the band between 5,000ft and 7,000ft no longer has noise as a relevant factor at all. This is a net reduction in the altitude range across which noise must be considered in CAA decision-making. The many Luton flights currently held low at 5,000 for 20 miles would no longer have noise weighed in that band.
There is now an ordered list of “airspace design priorities” for the CAA to apply in sequence:
(1) safety;
(2) enabling aviation activity permitted by planning decisions;
(3) minimising change to areas currently affected by noise below 5,000ft;
(4) minimising total adverse noise impacts below 5,000ft; and
(5) flight efficiency at/above 5,000ft.
The DfT also proposes to de-notify Noise Preferential Routes – currently agreed pathways which flight tracks should take to minimised community noise nuisance. Again this goes against the majority of consultation responses, and will increase noise uncertainty for communities.
Airspace change
The DfT has now mandated that “the impact of air traffic movements to and from UK airports on local air quality is not a relevant consideration for the CAA when exercising its air navigation functions.” This is now deemed a planning-system matter only.
So when the new UK Airspace Design Service produces designs for modernised airspace, air-quality concerns go out of the window.
Similarly, opposition to extending airspace trials to three years and temporary airspace changes to 180 days was ignored, with the resultant risk of long-term trials without independent scrutiny or opportunity to rescind.
And the plan to let local authorities act as a consultation “conduit” for sponsors was dropped after opposition.
Drones and air taxi trials are exempted from environmental impact assessment while government policy in this area is developed, with monitoring and complaint reporting in place of assessment. The consultation summary notes that community groups, local councils, environmental groups, and individuals clearly stated that these environmental assessments should not be removed – and then ignored their feedback.
Neutered protections
When airspace consultation is required, the new proposals give general discretion for the CAA and the airspace change sponsor to determine an “appropriate” and “proportionate” level of consultation. Proportionate in DfT-speak usually means inadequate from a community perspective.
The altitude band in which National Park and AONB overflight should be avoided, has been reduced from 7,000ft to 5,000ft, and impact on these areas is now framed as a planning matter rather than an airspace design matter, hence the industry-centric airspace designs of UKADS will be harder to challenge.
Similarly the previously detailed section on Continuous Descent Operations, Continuous Climb Operations, low-power/low-drag approaches and route publication no longer appears in the 2026 guidance. This means that industry need not make an effort to adopt less noisy flight procedures when impacting communities.
Three protections are now missing in the 2026 guidance:
a) the right to request the Secretary of State to call-in a change on noise grounds;
b) the trigger of a net noise increase of 10,000 people exposed to 54dB or more; and
c) supplementary noise metrics which counted the number of flights over a particular loudness.
Instead there is a new definition of a “change” in noise exposure, set at ±3dB LAmax. It is unclear what protection this would provide.
Cynical consultation
The consultation’s influence on the final substance of the guidance was concentrated on points of low cost to industry, while the points that determine how much noise reaches the ground moved little or not at all from what was originally proposed.
The ‘consultation’ outcome shows a consistent pattern: where a proposed change has little bearing on industry flexibility or cost, the majority opinion was heeded. But where a change matters to deliverability, cost or pace for the industry (altitude threshold, Noise Preferential Route removal, drone noise assessment requirements, trial durations) the outcome matches the DfT’s original proposal, often ignoring the majority position.
This indicates a guidance document that was largely settled before the consultation began, and a consultation exercise whose main effect was to test which changes could survive publication unaltered. On that record, residents under Luton’s flight paths – and anywhere else in the UK – have little reason to trust the DfT or to expect the airspace change proposals to be handled any differently. We suggest drawing this iniquity to the attention of your MP.