Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to establishing an ombudsman to oversee the aviation sector, in particular the work of the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

The work of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is subject to the oversight of Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The Government has ensured that the CAA have a robust set of internal and external remedies for those who are dissatisfied with the CAA’s customer service.

The remedies are, successively: internal review by the CAA; consideration by the Independent Complaints Assessor; and referral via their Member of Parliament to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

These remedies cannot address dissatisfaction with a regulatory decision which the CAA has taken (such as an aviation safety decision) but regulatory decisions are subject to bespoke internal review procedures and subsequently in most cases, challenge by way of judicial review. There are some exceptions such as economic regulation decisions may be appealed to the Competition and Markets Authority and airline operating licence decisions may be appealed to the Secretary of State. Additionally, some airspace design decisions can be called-in to be made by the Secretary of State rather than the CAA.

These pathways are prominently set out on the CAA’s website and we wish to see that they are used wherever appropriate.