S.I. No. 290/1971:

AIR NAVIGATION (EUROCONTROL) (ROUTE CHARGES) REGULATIONS, 1971.

AIR NAVIGATION (EUROCONTROL) (ROUTE CHARGES) REGULATIONS, 1971.

I, BRIAN LENIHAN, Minister for Transport and Power, in exercise of the power conferred on me by section 12 of the Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) Act, 1963 (No. 15 of 1963), as amended by section 1 of the Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) Act, 1971 (No. 19 of 1971), hereby make the following regulations (the charges thereunder having been determined by me in pursuance of tariffs approved of under an international agreement to which the State is a party):

1. These Regulations may be cited as the Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) (Route Charges) Regulations, 1971, and shall come into operation on the 1st day of November, 1971.

2. In these Regulations--

"contracting state" means a state which is not a member state, but which has, by way of special agreement, entrusted the Organisation with the collection, on its behalf, of charges for air navigation services provided by it in the airspace for which it has responsibility;

"member state" means a state which is a member state of the Organisation and which is a party to the multilateral agreement relating to charges for route air navigation facilities and services which was signed on behalf of the Government at Brussels on the 8th day of September, 1970;

"maximum authorised weight" refers, in relation to an aircraft, to the maximum permissible loaded weight, expressed in metric tons, authorised by the certificate of airworthiness of the aircraft issued or validated under the Air Navigation (Airworthiness of Aircraft) Order, 1964 ( S.I. No. 141 of 1964 );

"military aircraft" has the same meaning as in the Air Navigation (General) Regulations, 1930 (S. R. & O., No. 26 of 1930) as amended by the Air Navigation (Amendment) Order, 1951 ( S.I. No. 31 of 1951 );

"the relevant airspace" means the airspace the lateral and vertical extents of which are as follows:

The lateral extent shall be the area provided by straight lines joining the following co-ordinates:

The vertical extent shall extend from ground level with no upper limit.

3. (1) Subject to these Regulations, the operator of any aircraft for which air navigation services (not being air navigation services provided in connection with the use of an aerodrome) are made available in the relevant airspace shall pay to the Organisation in respect of each flight by that aircraft in that airspace, a charge for those services (hereinafter referred to as "the charge") at the appropriate rate calculated in accordance with Regulation 5 or 6:

Provided that if the Organisation is unable, after taking reasonable steps, to ascertain who is the operator, it may give notice to the owner of the aircraft that it will treat him as the operator until he establishes to the reasonable satisfaction of the Organisation that some other person is the operator; and from the time when the notice is given the Organisation shall be entitled, for so long as the owner is unable to establish as aforesaid that some other person is the operator, to treat the owner as if he were the operator, and for that purpose the provisions of these Regulations (other than this proviso) shall apply to the owner of the aircraft as if he were the operator.

(2) No charge shall be made in respect of such a flight as is specified in Regulation 6 which enters the relevant airspace if the operator is liable to a charge in respect of that flight (being a charge of an amount equivalent to the charge in respect thereof which but for this paragraph would have been imposed by virtue of Regulation 6) pursuant to the law of the first State (being a member state, other than Ireland, or a contracting state) overflown during that flight.

4. (1) The amount of the charge shall be payable to the Organisation at its principal office in Brussels.

(2) Any charge the amount of which has not been paid within the period of thirty days after the date of the despatch of the invoice therefor shall be liable to be increased by the addition thereto of interest from the date specified in paragraph (3) until the date of payment at the rate of nine per cent. per annum.

(3) Such interest shall commence to run on the first day of the first month following the despatch, by recorded delivery, of a notice to pay by the Organisation, or on the first day of the fifth month following the termination of the flight, whichever is the earlier.

(4) The amount of the charge, increased where appropriate in accordance with paragraph (2), shall be paid in United States dollars.

(5) The equivalent in currency of the State of the charge, increased where appropriate as aforesaid, shall be recoverable in any court of competent jurisdiction in the State.

(6) Nothing in this Regulation shall prevent the Organisation from accepting as a good discharge payment in currencies, other than United States dollars or at places other than the principal office of the Organisation.

5. (1) Except in the case of flights specified in Regulation 6, the charge shall be, subject to paragraph (7), calculated according to the following formula:

r = N x 0.8167 United States dollars

where r is the charge for the flight and N is the number of service units relating to the flight.

(2) For the purposes of paragraph (1), the number of service units relating to a flight shall be calculated in accordance with the following formula;

N = d x p

where d is the distance factor for the flight and p is the weight factor for the aircraft concerned.

(3) For the purposes of the preceding paragraph--

(a) the distance factor shall be the number of kilometres in the great circle distance between the points specified in paragraph (4), minus 20 kilometres for each landing and take-off in the relevant airspace, divided by 100 and expressed to two places of decimals, and

(b) the weight factor, subject to paragraph (6), shall be equal to the square root of the quotient obtained by dividing by 50 the number of metric tons in the maximum authorised weight of the aircraft and shall be expressed to two places of decimals.

(4) The points referred to in paragraph (3) are:

(a) the aerodrome of departure within the relevant airspace or, as the case may be, the point specified in paragraph (5) as the standard point of entry into that airspace for the route in question, or, in the case specified in the proviso to that paragraph, the actual point of entry into that airspace, and

(b) the aerodrome of first destination within the relevant airspace or, as the case may be, the point specified in paragraph (5) as the standard point of exit from that airspace for the route in question or, in the case specified in the proviso to that paragraph, the actual point of exit from that airspace.

(5) The standard points of entry and exit referred to in paragraph (4) are the points, as described in Aeronautical Information Publication (Ireland) on the date of the coming into operation of these Regulations, where the median line of the appropriate ATS route so described crosses the boundary of the relevant airspace.

For the purposes of this paragraph, the appropriate route shall be--

(a) the route between the aerodrome of departure and the aerodrome of first destination which appears to the Organisation at the time of the flight to be the most frequently used such route, or

(b) if the Organisation is unable to ascertain which route is the most frequently used at the relevant times, the shortest such route:

Provided that in the case of a flight in respect of which the aerodrome of departure or the aerodrome of first destination is situated in one of the zones specified in column (1) of the Schedule to these Regulations but no aerodrome is specified in column (2) of that Schedule, the point of entry into or, as the case may be, of exit from the relevant airspace over the Atlantic Ocean shall be the actual point where the flight crosses the lateral limits of the relevant airspace as described in Aeronautical Information Publication (Ireland) at the date of the coming into operation of these Regulations.

(6) The weight factor for an aircraft of any type shall be calculated by reference to the maximum authorised weight of the heaviest of an operator's aircraft of that type:

Provided that where an operator has indicated to the Organisation, within the period of six months immediately preceding the flight, the composition of the fleet of aircraft of which he disposes and that it includes two or more aircraft which are different versions of the same type of aircraft, the weight factor shall be calculated by reference to the average of the maximum authorised weights of all his aircraft of that type as indicated to the Organisation.

(7) In the case of aircraft whose maximum authorised weight is not less than 2 metric tons and does not exceed 5.7 metric tons, the sum referred to in the formula specified in Regulation 5(1) shall, in the case of flights made whether wholly or partly in accordance with the instrument flight rules contained in Part IV of the Schedule to the Air Navigation (Rules of the Air) Order, 1963 ( S.I. No. 7 of 1963 ), be 0.4783 United States dollars instead of 0.8167 United States dollars.

6. (1) The charge in relation to a flight which enters the relevant airspace and in respect of which the aerodrome of departure or the aerodrome of first destination, as the case may be, is specified in column (2) of the Schedule to these Regulations and the aerodrome of first destination or the aerodrome of departure, as the case may be, is situated in any of the zones specified in column (1) of that Schedule shall be calculated according to the following formula:

c = Z x p

where c is the charge payable, Z is the charge specified in column (3) of that Schedule appropriate to a maximum authorised weight of 50 metric tons and p is the weight factor of the aircraft determined in accordance with Regulation 6.

(2) Where a flight referred to in the preceding paragraph is by a military aircraft and is exempted in another State, being a member state or a contracting state, from payment of the amount corresponding to the charge, the charge shall be reduced by withdrawing from the distance appropriate to the relevant amount specified in the Schedule to these Regulations, a proportion corresponding to overflight of that State.

7. These Regulations shall not apply to--

(a) flights by military aircraft of member states,

(b) flights by military aircraft of a state other than a member state in so far as there is in force, at the time the flight is made, a bilateral or multilateral agreement or other arrangement providing for exemption from the charge for overflight of national territory by such aircraft to which that state and Ireland are parties,

(c) flights made for the purposes of search and rescue operations,

(d) flights made entirely in accordance with the visual flight rules contained in Part III of the Schedule to the Air Navigation (Rules of the Air) Order, 1963 ( S.I. No. 7 of 1963 ),

(e) flights terminating at the aerodrome from which the aircraft has taken off and during which no intermediate landing has been made,

(f) flights by aircraft which are the property of state but are not military aircraft provided that such flights are not made for commercial purposes,

(g) flights made for the purposes of checking or testing equipment used or intended to be used as aids to air navigation,

(h) test flight and flights made exclusively for the purpose of instruction or training of flight crew,

(i) flights made by aircraft of which the maximum total weight authorised is less than two metric tons.

SCHEDULE

GIVEN under my Official Seal, this 26th day of October, 1971.

BRIAN LENIHAN,

Minister for Transport and Power.

EXPLANATORY NOTE.

These Regulations provide for the payment of a single charge for air navigation facilities (other than aerodrome navigation services) made available to aircraft in the Irish airspace. The charges are payable to the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (Eurocontrol) which, by virtue of a bilateral agreement made between Ireland and that Organisation has undertaken to refund to this country the amount of the charges, less the costs of collection.