Summary

  • A resident affected by an airspace change could complain about CAA conduct under a proposed Aviation Ombudsman, yet the gateway requires a complaint against a “regulated person” and the definition leaves out the CAA.
  • The Ombudsman could force the regulator to reconsider and explain itself in public. The resident first has to get through the clause’s unanswered question: who is the complaint against?

A complaint needs a respondent

For a resident living with the effects of a changed flight path, NC1 sketches a new route: complain to an Aviation Ombudsman about the regulator’s conduct. The amendment then makes that resident solve a smaller, more awkward problem before the review can begin. The complaint has to be “against a regulated person”. The CAA is not one.

NC1 appeared on 30 October in the Report Stage amendment paper for the Civil Aviation (Consumer Protection and Regulatory Reform) Bill. John Milne and Chris Coghlan tabled it as a proposed “Independent Aviation Ombudsman”. This is a bill amendment, not an office that residents can contact today.

The proposal gives the new office a broad brief. Passengers, or people acting for them, could complain about airline, airport and air-navigation services, including cancellations, denied boarding, baggage and accessibility. Residents and representative bodies in areas materially affected by airspace changes, flight paths or air-navigation services could also complain. Subsection 4(b) adds the CAA’s conduct in exercising regulatory functions, including airspace-change decisions.

Then subsection 3 sets the entry rule. A complaint must be against a “regulated person”. NC1 defines that person as an operating-licence holder, an airport operator or a licensed air-navigation service provider. The CAA appears in the list of conduct the Ombudsman may review and disappears from the list of respondents.

An airline complaint has an obvious addressee. The CAA clause does not. NC1 says the complainant must first finish the internal complaint process of the “regulated person”, unless the Ombudsman waives that step. The bill lists licence holders, airports and licensed air-navigation providers. It never says which one answers for a CAA decision, or which process a resident should use. Name the CAA and its route, and the Ombudsman has a working entrance.

The remedy makes the distinction matter

If a complaint about CAA conduct clears that gateway, NC1 gives the Ombudsman a concrete power. It could order the CAA to review and reconsider the decision or matter. The CAA would have to comply, publish a response within the stated reasonable period, say whether it confirmed, varied or revoked the decision or took another action, and give reasons. The response would go to the Ombudsman and the Secretary of State, who would lay it before Parliament.

The direction would be enforceable in the same manner as a service determination. The Ombudsman could require the regulator to look again, explain its choice and leave a public record. It could not dictate the result or replace the CAA’s decision with its own. The resident might win the second look and still lose the airspace dispute.

Service complaints receive a different remedy. For a complaint against a regulated person, the Ombudsman could issue a determination for the complainant, direct compensation or other remedial action, and make that determination binding and enforceable. The draft therefore draws two tracks: repair a service complaint, or compel the regulator to reconsider. The first track names its respondent class. The second names CAA conduct but uses the same entry language.

The dividing line is consequential. An order to reconsider can produce a new reasoned decision, while an enforceable service determination can require compensation or a remedy. The resident needs to know which track applies before investing in a complaint, and the text should answer that in the clause itself.

Who builds the office?

The Secretary of State would appoint the Ombudsman after consulting people the Secretary considers appropriate. Regulations would set the appointment term, conditions and removal process, as well as the office’s establishment, operation and funding. NC1 proposes a levy on operators or owners of CAA-registered aircraft and on airport operators. An annual report to Parliament would record the number, nature and outcome of complaints.

Those choices set the institution’s working conditions. A minister selects the Ombudsman; aviation operators fund the office through a levy; later regulations determine the tenure, removal grounds and operating rules. A yearly count can show activity. By itself, it cannot tell Parliament whether residents reached the review stage or whether reconsideration changed anything.

NC1 proposes a second look at the regulator, then leaves the first step for the regulations—or the first complainant—to work out. Parliament can name the CAA as the respondent for subsection 4(b), state which internal procedure applies and keep the Ombudsman’s power to waive exhaustion when it is unreasonable. It can remove the respondent-class condition for CAA complaints. Or it can remove CAA conduct from the Ombudsman’s brief.

The test is practical: can a resident read the clause, name the respondent and identify the process to complete? If not, the Ombudsman’s strongest power sits behind a door the intended complainant may not be able to open.

Sources