Laying the foundations for the next chapter of airspace modernisation

Blog by Mark Swan, Head of ACOG

Over the past six years, ACOG has played a key role in supporting progress on airspace modernisation across the UK. This ambitious and complex national undertaking has required unique problem solving skillsets, sustained collaboration across multiple stakeholder groups and a willingness amongst the Industry to work in new and more coordinated ways. Today, we are seeing that effort translate into tangible momentum.

The Scottish cluster has recently completed its public consultation phase. The North cluster is approaching the same milestone, after Leeds recently cleared the CAA’s Stage 2 gateway, bringing it into line with the other airports in the cluster. These are meaningful steps forward, not only for the airports involved, but for the wider modernisation programme.

ACOG’s role has been to provide coordination where it has been most needed: bringing clusters together, aligning proposals with the national masterplan and offering practical, technical support to help navigate an inherently complex  process. I have seen first-hand how valuable that system-wide view is – ensuring proposals develop coherently and strategically, rather than in isolation.

In many respects, our work has been about laying the future foundations. Our experience of working through the early stages of the modernisation programme has surfaced structural and procedural challenges that were present from the outset. That experience – grounded in delivery, not theory – has been critical. It has helped shape proposals to refine the process, strengthen governance, clarify roles and responsibilities, and establish a more sustainable funding mechanism to support coordinated delivery. The recent DfT and CAA consultations on streamlining and improving the framework reflect many of those lessons.

I am particularly proud that ACOG, strongly supported by NATS, has not only supported delivery within the framework, but has helped inform how that framework must evolve.

While the precise transition timeline into the new UKADS and UKACS bodies is still being worked through, the work of modernisation continues. The clusters are more mature. The technical groundwork is stronger. The structures needed to sustain coordinated delivery are better defined.

Modernising UK airspace is a once-in-a-generation undertaking. ACOG has helped bring structure, coherence and momentum to that challenge, and I am confident that what comes next will build on that hard-earned experience, while accelerating delivery and maintaining the collaborative spirit that has brought us this far.