2030: the global rulebook for airspace around airports is changing

The rules that set how high buildings can rise near airports are being rewritten internationally for the first time in decades. ICAO's Amendment 18 to Annex 14 took effect on 4 August 2025, with the provisions on obstacle limitation surfaces becoming applicable on 21 November 2030. ICAO's own material acknowledges the current provisions were developed before the 1970s and don't address the capabilities of modern aircraft.

The new framework is designed so that only the surfaces actually required are adopted, and so they are performance-based and adaptable to the type of operations at each aerodrome. A key shift: when a building penetrates the new Obstacle Evaluation Surface, it triggers an aeronautical study rather than automatic rejection.

For Australia, that raises a practical question HAAPA is focused on: where it can be done safely, how much well-located housing could be unlocked by getting there sooner? And because these reforms sit alongside, not in place of, the PANS-OPS instrument procedure surfaces, what else needs reviewing for the benefit to reach the ground?

Read more:

• ICAO: Adoption of Amendment 18 to Annex 14, Volume I (state letter)

• UK Civil Aviation Authority: New ICAO Obstacle Limitation Surfaces

Related: PANS-OPS: the invisible ceiling over Sydney's skyline