
US military drone flights from an air base in Gloucestershire are set to cause chaos and delays for thousands of holidaymakers, aviation bosses fear, Report informs via The Telegraph.
Plans to fly the drones from RAF Fairford “2-3 times per week” will disrupt thousands of passengers aboard flights to and from Birmingham airport, its bosses have warned.
Drones have to be segregated from all other flights because the uncrewed aircraft cannot “detect and avoid” them to prevent collisions.
Yet introducing the long-range RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drones to the Gloucestershire base means severing a vital flight path used by airlines serving the West Midlands airport several times a week.
Now airport managers have written to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) warning that flights could be extended by hundreds of extra miles and delayed by up to 20 minutes while the Global Hawks are flying to and from Fairford.
Chris Cole, of anti-drone campaign group Drone Wars UK, said: “There has been a significant push to open UK skies to large military and civil drones for some time, with advocates arguing that bureaucratic red tape is simply frustrating progress.
“Yet in this significant test case, which saw large US military drones fly over the UK for the first time, the regulatory process was clearly insufficient as one of the key stakeholders with important responsibility for public safety was simply overlooked.”