How to respond to an airport expansion or airspace consultation

Most of the decisions that shape the noise over your home are made once every few years, and each comes with a consultation. They are the best chance residents get to change anything. They are also easy to miss, written in technical language and not decided by a show of hands, which is why so many responses have little effect.

First, work out what is being decided

Two kinds of decision account for most of the noise, and they are taken separately:

The difference matters. The UK government's Air Navigation Guidance 2026 says the airspace process is not meant to impose or revisit limits set in planning, such as caps on flights. So an airspace consultation is the place to argue about which way the planes go and how high, not whether there should be more of them.

There are other consultations worth watching: an airport's noise action plan, which in the EU and UK is reviewed every five years for large airports; changes to insulation schemes; and national night flight rules.

Airspace changes in the UK

Permanent changes to flight paths go through the CAA's airspace change process, CAP 1616. A new version applies from 1 October 2026 with five stages: propose and develop, consult, update and submit, decision, and implement. Some proposals already under way stay on the older, seven-stage version, so check which one applies.

The main points for residents:

• The sponsor runs the consultation, not the CAA. Send your response to the sponsor. The CAA forwards anything it receives.
• The sponsor sets the length, in proportion to the size of the change, and does not have to consider responses that arrive late.
• The CAA decides. For the most significant proposals it may hold a public evidence session, where people other than the sponsor can put their views to the decision-maker directly. The Transport Secretary can call a proposal in and decide it instead. There is no appeal; the only challenge is a judicial review in the High Court.

The government also tells the CAA what to prioritise. Under the 2026 guidance, after safety and the flights allowed by planning decisions, the CAA should keep changes to the areas that already hear planes below 5,000 ft to a minimum, then minimise the total noise below that height. In practice that favours keeping flights over places that already have them. If a design would put planes over you for the first time, say so clearly.

Around London, the airspace is being redesigned by the new UK Airspace Design Service, run by NATS, which works through the same process as a sponsor. The government has said this includes any airspace change needed for a third runway at Heathrow.

Airport expansion in England

In England, an airport scheme that adds capacity for at least 10 million passengers a year, or 10,000 cargo flights, is a nationally significant infrastructure project. It needs a development consent order, decided by the Transport Secretary after an examination by the Planning Inspectorate. Smaller increases go to the local council as ordinary planning applications.

The stages, as the government describes them in September 2026:

1. Pre-application. The legal duty on applicants to consult before applying was removed on 24 July 2026, but government guidance still encourages them to consult. At this stage you respond to the applicant, not the Planning Inspectorate.
2. Acceptance. The Planning Inspectorate has 28 days to decide whether to accept the application.
3. Registration. To take part in the examination, you must register and make a "relevant representation" within the registration period, which is at least 30 days from the last newspaper notice. If you miss it, you generally can't take part in the examination.
4. Examination, up to 6 months, with written questions and hearings.
5. Recommendation and decision, up to 3 months each, then a six-week window for a challenge in the High Court.

Recent decisions show where the process ends up. Luton was allowed to grow from 18 to 32 million passengers a year in April 2025, and Gatwick's northern runway was approved in September 2025, with a legal challenge dismissed by the Court of Appeal in 2026. For Heathrow's third runway, the government consulted on a revised national policy statement until 1 September 2026, and Heathrow's own consultation on its plans runs from 27 October to 22 December 2026.

Elsewhere in Europe and in the US

In the EU, large projects need an environmental impact assessment, and that covers every airport with a main runway of 2,100 m or more. The public must get at least 30 days to comment on the assessment report, and early chances to take part while all options are still open. Noise action plans for airports with more than 50,000 flights a year must also go out to public consultation.

In the US, airport projects that need an FAA decision go through an environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act before work starts. The FAA also works with communities through airport roundtables and noise compatibility studies (Part 150), where residents can help recommend changes.

How to find consultations before they close

• The CAA's Airspace Change Portal: enter a postcode or place name to see every airspace proposal nearby, with its documents and the responses.
• The airport's website, its community newsletter and its consultative committee.
• The council's planning pages and the Planning Inspectorate's project pages for large schemes.
• GOV.UK consultations for national policy such as night flight rules.
• Local residents' groups, who often know about proposals early.

What makes a response count

In UK airspace changes, the CAA says the process is not a referendum. The sponsor must sort the responses into those that may affect the final design and those that do not, record identical responses and group them into themes, and show the CAA how the feedback was considered. It does not have to change the design to match the feedback, but it has to give reasons for its choices.

So write something the sponsor has to deal with:

• Say where you are. Give your street or postcode and what you hear now: roughly how many planes, at what height and at what times.
• Say what would change for you. Use the consultation's own maps and figures: whether you would be overflown for the first time, lose a break from the noise, get planes lower or earlier, or move into a higher noise band.
• Use evidence. Your own log of flights, recorded flight data, official thresholds (the UK treats 51 dB by day and 45 dB at night as the levels where adverse effects start), and anything particular about your area such as schools, care homes or quiet countryside.
• Engage with the options. Say which option is least bad for you and why, or propose an alternative: a different route, respite through alternation, steeper or higher approaches, limits at night, or insulation.
• Answer the questions asked, in your own words. Identical template responses are grouped together.
• Point out gaps. Consultations should happen while the proposal can still change, with enough information and time to respond. If the maps don't show your area or the documents leave out night flights, say so.

A clear picture of what your address hears today, by day and by night and in each runway direction, is the strongest starting point for a response.

Deadlines and later chances

Note the closing date as soon as you hear about a consultation, and don't wait for the last week. There are sometimes later chances: in airspace changes, the CAA's public evidence session for major proposals; in planning, the examination itself, but only if you registered in time. If a new flight path turns out to be worse than promised, complain to the airport with specifics, as our guide to complaining about aircraft noise explains, so that the problem is on the record.

Joining groups and noise forums

You don't have to do this alone. Under the Civil Aviation Act 1982, airports designated by the government must give their users, local councils and local organisations a way to be consulted, usually through an airport consultative committee. Government guidelines encourage these committees to hold their meetings in public, though they have no power to make decisions. The Air Navigation Guidance also encourages airspace change sponsors to use them to reach local people.

Large airports also run noise forums. Heathrow's Noise and Airspace Community Forum, set up in 2022, brings together councils and community groups with NATS, British Airways, the Department for Transport, the CAA and the airport; the public can watch meetings and read the notes. Residents' groups and local councils often respond to consultations too, and a group can bring together evidence from many streets.