Citation and commencement
1. These Regulations may be cited as the Civil Aviation (Route Charges for Navigation Services) Regulations 1997 and shall come into force on 1st January 1998.
Revocation
2. The Regulations specified in Schedule 1 hereto are hereby revoked.
Interpretation
3.—(1) In these Regulations—
“AIP” in relation to a country other than the United Kingdom means a document in force at the date of the making of these Regulations, entitled “Aeronautical Information Publication” or “AIP” and published by a public authority of that country;
“authorised person” means any constable or any person authorised by the CAA (whether by name or by class or description) either generally or in relation to a particular case or class of cases;
“ECUs” means European Currency Units being units of account defined by reference to more than one currency;
“FIR” means “Flight Information Region”;
“specified airspace” means the airspace of a FIR described as set forth in columns (1) and (2) of Schedule 2 hereto;
“United Kingdom Air Pilot” means the document so entitled in force at the date of the making of these Regulations and published by the CAA.
(2) Other expressions used in these Regulations shall, unless the context otherwise requires, have the same respective meanings as in the Air Navigation (No. 2) Order 1995(1).
Charge to be paid to Eurocontrol
4.—(1) Subject to the provisions of these Regulations the operator of any aircraft (in whatsoever State it is registered) for which navigation services (not being navigation services provided in connection with the use of an aerodrome) are made available in a specified airspace shall pay to Eurocontrol, in respect of each flight by that aircraft in that airspace, a charge for those services (hereinafter referred to as “the charge”) at the appropriate rate calculated in accordance with regulation 6 of these Regulations.
(2) If Eurocontrol is unable, after taking reasonable steps, to ascertain who is the operator, it may give notice to the owner of the aircraft that it will treat him as the operator until he establishes to the reasonable satisfaction of Eurocontrol that some other person is the operator; and from the time when the notice is given Eurocontrol shall be entitled, for so long as the owner is unable to establish as aforesaid that some other person is the operator, to treat the owner as if he were the operator, and for that purpose the provisions of these Regulations (other than this paragraph) shall apply to the owner of the aircraft as if he were the operator.
(3) The operator of an aircraft shall not be required to pay any charge to Eurocontrol under these Regulations in respect of a flight if he has previously paid to Eurocontrol in respect of that flight a charge of the same or a greater amount under the law of a country specified in column 1 of Schedule 2 hereto.
Payment
5.—(1) The amount of the charge shall be payable to Eurocontrol at its principal office in Brussels and shall be paid in ECUs.
(2) The equivalent in sterling of the charge may be recovered in any court of competent jurisdiction in the United Kingdom.
(3) If the amount of the charge payable under regulation 4(1) is not paid in cleared funds by the operator of the aircraft within 30 days of the date payment is demanded by Eurocontrol, interest calculated in accordance with paragraph (4) below on the unpaid amount shall be paid from that day until the date when cleared funds are received by Eurocontrol.
(4) Interest payable under paragraph (3) shall be simple interest calculated from day to day at the rate of 7.73%.
(5) Nothing in this regulation shall prevent Eurocontrol from accepting as a good discharge payment other than in ECUs or at places other than the principal office of Eurocontrol.
Calculation of the Charge
6.—(1) The charge shall be calculated in ECUs according to the following formula—
r = N × U
where
r is the charge for the flight, N is the number of service units relating to that flight and U is the appropriate unit rate specified in column 3 of Schedule 2 hereto in relation to the specified airspace through which the flight is made, increased or decreased as the case may be by the same percentage as the relevant national currency has increased or decreased against the ECU as compared with the rate of exchange specified in column 4 of the said Schedule in relation to that airspace.
(2) For the purpose of the preceding paragraph, the number of service units relating to a flight shall be calculated in accordance with the following formula—
N = d × p
where
d is the distance factor for the flight in the specified airspace in question and p is the weight factor for the aircraft concerned.
(3) For the purposes of the preceding paragraph—
(a)the distance factor shall be the number of kilometres in the great circle distance between the points specified in paragraph (4) of this regulation minus 20 kilometres for each landing and take-off in the specified airspace in question, divided by 100 and expressed to two places of decimals, and
(b)the weight factor, subject to the provisions of paragraphs (6) and (7) of this regulation, shall be equal to the square root of the quotient obtained by dividing by 50 the number of metric tonnes of the maximum total weight authorised of the aircraft and shall be expressed to two places of decimals.
(4) The points referred to in paragraph (3) of this regulation are—
(a)the aerodrome of departure within the specified airspace in question or, if there is no such aerodrome, the point of entry into that airspace; and
(b)the aerodrome of first destination within the specified airspace in question or, if there is no such aerodrome, the point of exit from that airspace.
(5) For the purposes of the preceding paragraph, the point of entry into the specified airspace in question and the point of exit from that airspace shall be the points at which the lateral limits of the said airspace are crossed by the route described in the flight plan communicated by or on behalf of the operator of the aircraft either to the appropriate air traffic control unit or to the Flow Management Unit of Eurocontrol with any modifications thereto subsequently made or approved by or on behalf of the operator.
(6) Subject to paragraph (7) below, the weight factor for an aircraft of any type shall be calculated by reference to the maximum total weight authorised of the heaviest aircraft of that type.
(7) Where an operator has indicated to Eurocontrol, within the period of one year immediately preceding the flight, the composition of the fleet of aircraft which he operates and which includes two or more aircraft which are different versions of the same type of aircraft, the weight factor shall be calculated by reference to the average of the maximum total weight authorised of all his aircraft of that type so indicated to Eurocontrol.
(8) For the purposes of this regulation the rate of exchange of the ECU to a national currency shall be the average monthly rate of exchange of the ECU to that national currency established by Eurocontrol for the month preceding the month during which the flight takes place.
Exempt Flights
7. These Regulations shall not apply to the following flights—
(i)flights by military aircraft;
(ii)flights made for the purposes of search and rescue operations;
(iii)flights by aircraft of which the maximum total weight authorised is 5700 kg or less made entirely in accordance with the Visual Flight Rules in the Rules of the Air Regulations 1996(2);
(iv)flights terminating at the aerodrome from which the aircraft has taken off;
(v)flights other than the flights referred to in paragraph (i) of this regulation made by aircraft which are used in the service of a State (including for customs or police purposes) and which are not made for commercial purposes;
(vi)flights made exclusively for the purpose of checking or testing equipment used or intended to be used as aids to air navigation;
(vii)flights made exclusively for the purpose of the instruction or testing of flight crew within the specified airspace of the United Kingdom;
(viii)flights made by aircraft of which the maximum total weight authorised is less than two metric tonnes;
(ix)flights made by helicopters between any point in the United Kingdom to a vessel or an offshore installation within the area bounded by straight lines joining successively the following points—
N5500 E00302; N5500 W00100; N5600 W00230; N5740 W00230; N5740 W00400; N5830 W00400; N5830 W00500; N6300 W00500; N6300 E/W00000;
and thence south by the Median Line to N5500 E00302; and
(x)flights made by helicopters between any point in the United Kingdom to a vessel or an offshore installation within the area bounded by straight lines joining successively the following points—
N5500 W00100; N5500 E00300; N5423 E00245; N5256 E00309; N5230 E00247; N5226 E00137; N5238 E00140; N5251 E00124; N5319 E00010; N5500 W00100.
Detention and sale of aircraft for unpaid charges
8. Where default is made in the payment of the charges incurred in respect of any aircraft under these Regulations Eurocontrol may request the CAA to act on behalf of Eurcontrol in accordance with the provisions of regulations 9 to 12.
9. Where such a request has been made, the CAA or an authorised person may on behalf of Eurocontrol, subject to the provisions of this and the following regulations, take such steps as are necessary to detain, pending payment, either—
(a)the aircraft in respect of which the charges were incurred (whether or not they were incurred by the person who is the operator of the aircraft at the time when the detention begins); or
(b)any other aircraft of which the person in default is the operator at the time when the detention begins;
and if the charges are not paid within 56 days after the date when the detention begins, the CAA may, subject to the following regulations, sell the aircraft on behalf of Eurocontrol in order to satisfy the charges.
10. The CAA or the authorised person concerned shall not detain, or continue to detain, an aircraft on behalf of Eurocontrol under these Regulations by reason of any alleged default in the payment of the charges payable under these Regulations if the operator of the aircraft or any other person claiming an interest therein—
(a)disputes that the charges, or any of them, are due or, if the aircraft is detained under regulation 9(a) of these Regulations, that the charges in question were incurred in respect of that aircraft; and
(b)gives to Eurocontrol, pending the determination of the dispute, sufficient security for the payment of the charges which are alleged to be due.
11.—(a) The CAA shall not sell an aircraft on behalf of Eurocontrol under these Regulations without the leave of the court; and the court shall not give leave except on proof that a sum is due to Eurocontrol for charges under these Regulations, that default has been made in the payment thereof and that the aircraft which the CAA seeks leave to sell on behalf of Eurocontrol is liable to sale under these Regulations by reason of default.
(b)In this regulation, “the court” means, as respects England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the High Court and, as respects Scotland, the Court of Session.
12. The CAA shall, before applying to the court for leave to sell an aircraft on behalf of Eurocontrol under regulation 11 above, take such steps for bringing the proposed application to the notice of interested persons and for affording them an opportunity of becoming a party to the proceedings as are set forth in Schedule 3 to these Regulations. If such leave is given, the CAA shall secure that the aircraft is sold on behalf of Eurocontrol for the best price that can reasonably be obtained; but failure to comply with any requirement of this regulation or of the said Schedule in respect of any sale, while actionable as against the CAA at the suit of any person suffering loss in consequence thereof, shall not, after the sale has taken place, be a ground for impugning its validity.
13. The proceeds of any sale under these Regulations shall be applied as follows, and in the following order, that is to say—
(a)in payment of any customs duty which is due in consequence of the aircraft having been brought into the United Kingdom;
(b)in payment of the expenses incurred by the CAA in detaining, keeping and selling the aircraft, including its expenses in connection with the application to the court;
(c)in payment of the charges in respect of any aircraft which the court has found to be due from the operator by virtue of these or any other Regulations under section 73 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982(3);
(d)in payment of any interest on unpaid charges incurred in respect of any aircraft which the court has found to be due from the operator by virtue of these Regulations;
(e)in payment of any airport charges incurred in respect of the aircraft which are due from the operator of the aircraft to the person owning or managing the aerodrome at which the aircraft was detained under these Regulations;
and the surplus, if any, shall be paid to or among the person or persons whose interests in the aircraft have been divested by reason of the sale.
14. The power of detention and sale conferred by these Regulations in respect of an aircraft extends to the equipment of the aircraft and any stores for use in connection with its operation (being equipment and stores carried in the aircraft) whether or not the property of the person who is its operator, and references to the aircraft in regulations 9 to 13 of these Regulations include, except where the context otherwise requires, references to any such equipment and stores.
15. The power of detention conferred by these Regulations in respect of an aircraft extends to any aircraft documents carried in it, and any such documents may, if the aircraft is sold under these Regulations, be transferred by the CAA to the purchaser.
16. The power conferred by these Regulations to detain an aircraft may be exercised on any occasion when the aircraft is on an aerodrome to which section 88 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982(4) applies or at Belfast International Airport, Belfast City Airport or Eglinton Airport.
17. Nothing in these Regulations shall prejudice any right of Eurocontrol to recover any charges, or any part thereof, or interest on unpaid charges, by action.
Records of Movements of Aircraft
18.—(1) This regulation shall apply to any aerodrome to which section 88 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 applies and to Belfast International Airport, Belfast City Airport and Eglinton Airport.
(2) The manager of any aerodrome to which this regulation applies shall keep a log (hereafter in this regulation referred to as “the aircraft movement log”) in which the following particulars shall be recorded:
(a)the type and registration mark of each aircraft taking off from or landing at the aerodrome;
(b)the date and time of each such take off and landing;
(c)the origin or destination of each aircraft as the case may be.
(3) The aircraft movement log shall be preserved by the aerodrome manager for a period of two years after the date of the last entry therein.
(4) The aircraft movement log shall be maintained in a legible form or in a form which is capable of being reproduced in a legible form.
(5) The aerodrome manager shall, within seven days after being requested to do so by an officer of the CAA, produce to such officer the aircraft movement log in a legible form.
Signed by authority of the Secretary of State for Transport
Glenda Jackson
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State,
Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions
9th December 1997