The Department for Transport has published guidelines to assist those involved in establishing, running and participating in Airport Consultative Committees. The guidelines set out some principles and standards that can be used by those involved in establishing, running and participating in airport consultative committees to ensure committees operate in an effective and constructive way.
Forty-seven responses were received to the consultation earlier in the year, from a range of committees, organisations and airports as well as responses from members of the public. These guidelines have been updated to reflect comments where possible. The Department have said that both main additions to the Guidelines – the five principles and the suggested code of conduct for committee members – were generally well received by most of those who provided feedback. It was generally agreed that best practice should be shared between committees although this could sometimes be difficult in practice. There was almost unanimous agreement that Section 35 of the Civil Aviation Act 1982 should be retained. In light of this response, the Department has no plans to change the legal status of committees, although they state that they may look at updating the list of designated airports in the near future.
There were a range of views regarding the admittance of the public to meetings and a number of reasons why it might not be ideal for committee meetings to be made public were raised. While the Guidelines continue to encourage committees to open their meetings to the public, the Department states that this is a decision that should be made by committees themselves after giving appropriate consideration to the local context.
The main changes that have been made to the Guidelines in response to the feedback and comments received have been the acknowledgement throughout the document of the role committees play in protecting and enhancing the experience of passengers who use the airport, as well as the addition of a section on the role of committees with regards to complaints about airport operations. Also included is a section on disputes involving committees, although the Department states that this stops short of setting out any formal dispute resolution mechanism as suggested by some respondents.