New Zealand – CAA Advertising Causes Industry Concerns

Over the last few weeks, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has used Facebook advertising to target the general public in an attempt to educate potential drone users. Like the CAA, UAVNZ considers aviation safety of paramount importance and we want to see such initiatives happen. However, we have some concerns about some of the messaging, particularly an advertisement about “no-fly zones” that began running last week.

Our concerns are as follows:

The term “no-fly zones” does not exist under the Civil Aviation Rules1 for neither manned aircraft nor drones, rather, there are requirements that have to be met to fly in certain airspace (e.g., to fly a drone within 4km of an aerodrome)

The use of the term “no-fly zones” could create confusion because the public will believe that they cannot operate in those areas under any circumstances. This is a lost opportunity for the CAA to help educate drone users and the public about how to safely operate in those areas of airspace by meeting their conditions (usually through correct operating procedures, qualifications, and/or certification).

The headline item of “no-fly zones” will adversely affect compliant operators who are correctly operating within certain airspace (e.g., within 4km of an aerodrome) because the general public will begin to believe that what they are doing is illegal – this has a direct consequence for our members who already receive police callouts due to concerned members of the public believing that they are breaking the law, even though they are exercising their additional privileges granted under Part 102 of the Civil Aviation Rules or using the nuances of Part 101 to carry out the operation in a compliant manner.

UAVNZ has offered assistance with the wording and formatting of the CAA’s Facebook advertisements related to drones. We all would like to see reliable information being

However, the current messaging does not achieve that. UAVNZ calls on CAA to remove the “no-fly zone” advertisement and keep future messaging consistent with the Civil Aviation Rules.

For more information or comments, contact Isaac Henderson 022 222 6425