RFF - ICAO Flight Operations Panel Agrees with IAOPA

Five years ago European AOPAs identified the unnecessary insistence on rescue and firefighting (RFF) personnel to be on the aerodrome for being considered ‘open’ as a major contributor to high landing fees. At the root of that requirement is the ICAO Standard in Annex 14 Part I which states that RFF must be present when international operations occur at an airport. Understandably some States applied this criterion to all of its airports, artificially increasing operating costs.

IAOPA presented several papers over the years to the Aerodromes Panel, asking that airports servicing primarily, or only, General Aviation be exempt from the requirement of RFF to be present on the field. For various reasons, that proposal was continually rejected.

Since the decision of landing or not landing at a particular airport is one left to pilots to make, IAOPA, through the General Aviation Study Group, approached the Flight Operations Panel (FLTOPS) to change wording in Annex 6 Part II to reflect that decision making privilege of pilots. The Panel agreed and in November passed the following recommendation:

9.3.1 - RFF shall be provided at aerodromes when servicing commercial air transport operations commensurate to the nature of operations. And

9.2.3 - Aerodromes not servicing commercial air transport operations shall have a means to provide RFF services commensurate to the size of the aircraft and the nature of the operations.

An important note follows which says; Information on determining the adequate means to provide RFF for aerodromes servicing GA is provided in the Airport Services Manual Part I - RFF - Doc. 9137.

IAOPA will participate early in 2015 to draft wording for the guidance material to appear in Doc. 9137. Paragraph 9.2.3 simply confirms that pilots are free to decide if an airport is usable regardless of RFF status

This FLTOPS Panel recommendation will be presented to the Air Navigation Commission in early in 2015 and if accepted will be sent to States for comment. It may be possible for the Annex 6 Standard to be adopted by end 2015. If that comes about, that will be a partial success of a series of steps toward lowering operating costs for operators.

However, this is only step one. The real change has to occur in Annex 14 Part I, which IAOPA has asked that airports handling non-commercial operations of small GA be exempted from having to provide RFF on the field. As it stands at this point, if the FLTOPS Panel report is adopted, an airport operator may still feel himself bound by the current wording in Annex 14, which demands RFF to be present on the field in order for the airport to be considered operational.