Madrid, 5 May 2022 (AESA)

The State Aviation Safety Agency (ESA) assumes competence for the approval of flight procedures and becomes a substantive body for the environmental handling of new flight procedures and airspace structures, as set out in Royal Decree 310/2022 approved by the Council of Ministers.

The RD regulates airspace structures and civil flight procedures, supplementing the Spanish legal order to enable the application of European regulation, in particular by developing some of the aspects that Regulation (EU) 2017/373 requires of Member States.

AESA is now the competent authority to approve flight procedures submitted by air navigation service providers or airport managers, on their own initiative or at the request of third parties, who will have to contract a certified flight procedure design service provider (FPD) to propose a new manoeuvre, which has hitherto been approved by the Interministerial Commission between Defence and Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (CIDETMA). 

On the other hand, the Royal Decree also appoints AESA as a substantive body in the environmental processing of the authorisation of draft flight procedures and airspace structures, having to validate the environmental documentation of the project before sending it to the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge and monitor compliance with the conditions set out in the environmental resolution issued by the latter.