CAA Service Expenses to be Multiplied. Have Your Say by 6 Jan 2025! – sUAS Information

Entry the session HERE. Beneath is our draft response (will evolve till 6 Jan) which might assist you in drafting your personal response. UAS / Drone operators within the Particular Class (PDRA01, OSC/ORA holders): you MUST reply to the CAA Service Expenses session by 6 Jan 2025.

Go to Part 3: Charging proposals by particular person scheme

• Do you have got any feedback referring to proposed modifications for the Remotely Piloted Plane Programs Scheme?

In your info, the desk under summarizes our analyses of the proposed modifications to the CAA Service Expenses:

We profoundly disagree with the proposed modifications to the Remotely Piloted Plane Programs (RPAS) Scheme. These proposals are disproportionate, unfair, and lack satisfactory justification.

Proposed 2025/26 CAA Service Expenses: Disproportionate Will increase

The proposed will increase are extreme and don’t align with the ideas of equity or proportionality:

• PDRA01 fees: from £234 to £500. Improve by 2.1x. PDRA01 has been in place for over 10 years (previously PfCO). 95% of operators within the particular class are working underneath PDRA01. With the introduction of the digitised DiSCO platform and a shift to declarative oversight with periodic audits (e.g., auditing ~20% of purposes), labour prices ought to have decreased as a result of effectivity positive aspects. Why, then, are PDRA01 fees doubling? What are the price financial savings from digitisation if not mirrored in fees?

• New PDRAs: from £234 to £2185. Improve by 9.3x.  “we shall be exploring the supply of further PDRAs…. we are going to set an preliminary value level of £2185 for non declarative PDRAs”. PDRA-01 present cost is £234. Judging by the PDRA01 survey accomplished in November 2024, it appears that evidently the CAA can be contemplating transitioning all the best way to SORA the place the entry level is a SAIL I utility at £2185 as nicely. This isn’t sustainable for small operators, forming the vast majority of the group. 

  The #1 goal for brand new PDRAs shall be to offer a easy regulatory scheme for many frequent consumer instances with decrease risk-profiles, between the Open class and the Particular class, or Within the decrease a part of the Particular Class. 

  What justifies such a degree of fees? Are you implying that the entry level to the Particular class will shift to £2k+?

• OSC/ORA renewal fees, earlier than SAIL is carried out – or after: from £625 to £4992. Improve by 8x. But the method itself stays unchanged. How is that this improve justifiable or affordable?
• RAE: Even RAEs degree 1 preliminary fees  would improve by 43%, regardless of no substantive modifications to the service offered. What justifies this rise?

• Transition from OSC/ORA to a SORA SAIL II: from £625 OSC renewal cost to £3994 SAIL II utility. Improve by 6.4x  
• Worse, if SORA purposes are certainly location-specific : “non technical SAIL II renewal” at £3995: the top of it. 

  The idea of location-specific vs annual renewals for OSC/ORA is in itself a profound setback that  might jeopardize the trade. Including a £4k cost per flight/mission would successfully kill the market. The CAA could also be considering by way of repeated routes, like in CAT, however that’s not in any respect the sample for information seize with drones.

• Extreme hourly charge at £312 

The present hourly charges are extreme, far exceeding the totally loaded value of a drone operator’s accountable supervisor – and doubtless of your personal crew’s wages. 

How do you calculate these hourly charges? What’s your proportion of overhead?

£312 per hour x 1800 hours a 12 months = £561 600 per 12 months

£468 per hour x 1800 hours a 12 months = £842 400 per 12 months

Operators additionally face a scarcity of transparency and visibility relating to the utmost hours billed, successfully giving the CAA a “clean verify.”

Evidently that the Worth Improve Desk (p. 44) indicating 5.9% total improve for RPAS is extraordinarily deceptive. The truth, as detailed above, is that fees could be multiplied by a number of elements in comparison with final 12 months.

The proposed 2025/26 CAA Service Expenses will additional push a part of the group into hiding into non-compliance within the Open Class .

We’ve acknowledged a number of instances that the unintended consequence of advanced regulation is that individuals finally surrender, they don’t try to perceive, they finally thoughts their very own enterprise within the Open Class, outdoors of direct CAA oversight, and the place the danger of being caught by the police for unlawful flying is minimal.

Improve in CAA Service Expenses in that proportion will possible undermine security and improve non-compliance.

The proposed cost will increase will cripple an rising sector and undermine its impression by way of GDP progress.

If we think about the proposed Service Expenses along with the transition to SORA:

• A posh methodology that even the CAA operational groups will possible battle to embrace it, and no indicators at this stage that the CAA intends to soak up the SORA methodology in its position of aviation authority and produce simplified efficient schemes for end-users;
• Potential profound setback to location-specific, which means mission particular, SORA purposes (the executive burden of it,, the delays with CAA groups overwhelmed by the multiplication impact on the variety of purposes, the catastrophic multiplier impact on the price of compliance if location-based)
• Lack of preparation on the drone operators’ aspect, by lack of visibility on the transition interval.

There is no such thing as a doubt that the proposed fees signify a transparent risk to the sector’s progress and probably financial viability.

It additionally raises critical issues on the price of compliance for the following steps, flightworthiness, product evaluation RAE-F, and past the primary steps of UTM. Are the price of a full-blown advanced regulatory method appropriate with the scale and sources of the UK CAA and the UK trade? Clearly, the monetary facet MUST be factored into the decision-making course of on regulation.

Lastly, it raises the query of the regulatory method that the CAA needs to embrace: FAA fashion the place the price of a Half 107 (equal to PDRA01) is $150, and the innovation method is total pragmatic? Or a European fashion, cascading the total SORA methodology with all its complexity from the “regulators assume tank”, JARUS, straight to the native survey/building/mapping/filming firms?

As a Consumer payer, we search transparency on the actions and prices behind these CAA Service Expenses will increase

• Are you able to please present particulars of the underlying actions and groups driving the RPAS funds? 
• Are you able to additionally present particulars on the variety of customers, present and projected, supporting the person fees?
• What are the revenues generated by DMARES? Are they factored into the funds and calculations, in order that the RPAS sector is taken into account as an entire?
• What’s the inner course of for approving expenditures with such vital impacts on end-users? Why are end-users not consulted in the end? As expressed above, the monetary facet should be factored into the decision-making course of on regulation.

You can too add a remark in Part 2: Overview of charging proposals. Do you have got any feedback referring to the proposals linked to modifications in our regulatory perimeter?

“See in Part 3 our response referring to the proposed modifications for the Remotely Piloted Plane Programs Scheme and the exorbitant cost will increase.”

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