The Airport Operator | Summer 2026
Tim Johnson, Policy Director, UK Civil Aviation Authority
25 June 2026
Last year was a record-breaking year that saw over 300 million passengers travelling through UK airports. The UK has never seen so many people flying, so how do we protect hundreds of millions of passengers, help them fly safely and smoothly, and enable the sector to grow into the future?
The Civil Aviation Bill now being considered by Parliament represents an important step forward. We welcome the Bill, which addresses many current and future challenges facing our sector:
- Making our safety regulation process more agile so we can adapt more quickly to emerging safety issues and developing sectors
- Building consumer confidence in UK aviation by strengthening our ability to enforce existing regulations if passenger rights are systematically failing to be upheld
- Enabling implementation of airspace modernisation changes to improve the efficiency of the airspace system.
