Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the role of (a) Navblue, (b) Lufthansa Systems, (c) Jeppessen and (d) other coding houses in airspace modernisation.

Coding houses are contracted by airlines to provide coding for their Flight Management Systems. The Department does not provide oversight of this commercial relationship or the work of coding houses. As part of the Aviation Strategy the Department has sought views on how to hold coding houses to account for their work if it results in aircraft deviating from approved flightpaths.

The Department has not conducted an assessment of the role of coding houses in airspace modernisation. A key component of airspace modernisation is the introduction of performance-based navigation (PBN) standards which will enable aircraft to more accurately follow approved flightpaths.