Examining unmanned aircraft user compliance with Civil Aviation Rules: The case of New Zealand

Isaac Levi Henderson and Andrew Shelley

Transport Policy, 2023, vol. 133, issue C, 176-185

Abstract: Civil Aviation Rules (CARs) are aviation safety regulations to ensure a safe and efficient aviation system. Many countries have introduced or modified such regulations as the number and complexity of unmanned aircraft operations increases. Despite this, the literature on compliance with these regulations is limited and tends to focus on conceptual issues or only specific regulations (e.g., registration). This study is the first to examine compliance among unmanned aircraft users with a full set of CARs, incorporating all the nuance associated with each CAR to determine compliance. The total number of CARs being broken can then be tallied for each participant to create an overall compliance score. The sample consisted of 879 New Zealand unmanned aircraft users. These users were asked about what sorts of operations they undertook and under what conditions, which was then used to determine compliance with each CAR. Participants were also categorised based upon user type, whether they had undertook training or completed a flight examination, membership to Model Flying New Zealand (MFNZ) or UAVNZ, and whether they had operated for a certificated organisation. The findings reveal that 83.52% of users are fully compliant with the CARs, while 11.64% are non-compliant with a single CAR, 3.52% with two CARs, and 1.33% with three or more CARs. The biggest difference between compliance levels was between MFNZ members who were more compliant than all other users. This highlights that the model flying club environment introduces social norms that regulate compliance. Other users more broadly follow ordinary attitudes towards compliance with speed limits when driving, which tend to be driven by social norms and legitimacy rather than instrumentalist approaches. This study recommends education around the consequences of non-compliance, a re-examination of the rules for legitimacy, and further enforcement action for non-compliance as potential policy initiatives to improve compliance among users.

Keywords: Unmanned aircraft; Aviation regulations; Drones; Compliance; Model aircraft (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.tranpol.2023.01.010

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