CASA Publishes a Guide for Certified Aerodrome Operators
CASA's 5 November 2026 guide collects existing Part 139 and Part 139 Manual of Standards material for councils, mines and other operators of certified aerodromes. It is not a new regulation, and it is not written for every airstrip.
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Updated November 9, 2026
3 min read
On 5 November 2026 the Civil Aviation Safety Authority said it had published a new guide to help aerodrome operators understand the Part 139 rules. CASA's release describes the document as a practical collection of requirements that already exist. It does not describe a new regulation, a new offence or a change that brings uncertified airstrips under Part 139.
The photograph is an aerial view of Bankstown Airport in Sydney, taken on 6 January 2011. It is an Australian aerodrome. It is not a picture from the guide, and this article does not use it as evidence of any particular aerodrome's certificate status.
What CASA says the guide contains
The release says the "Guide for aerodrome operators" brings together key regulatory requirements and standards for:
- Part 139 of the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations
- the Part 139 Manual of Standards
It also contains exemptions, relevant guidance material and advisory documents. The topics CASA names are standards for aerodrome facilities, obstacle control, operational procedures and safety management. Those are the subjects of the existing Part 139 scheme. A guide that restates them is an explanation of the scheme. The binding text remains the regulations and the Manual of Standards, which CASA points readers toward. Part 139 sits in the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998.
CASA says the guide is particularly relevant to local councils, resource and mining companies, private aerodrome operators, and other organisations responsible for operating certified aerodromes. The stated focus is certified aerodromes that support domestic and regional air transport, general aviation and non-scheduled international operations.
That audience is narrower than "anyone with a strip." An unregulated or uncertified landing area is outside the group CASA names. An operator that wants to know whether its own aerodrome is certified, or which exemption applies to it, has to use the certificate, the Manual of Standards and the current exemptions, not the fact that a guide now exists.
What the release does not do
The 5 November text announces that the guide is available. It does not amend CASR Part 139 in the release itself, and it does not say that every Australian landing ground must now meet certified-aerodrome standards. Councils, mine sites and private operators are listed because many of them already run certified aerodromes, not because the guide converts every site they own into one.
CASA's news page is the primary account used here of what the guide is for. The separate guide file was not retrieved in this check after the news page had been read, so this article does not describe chapters, page counts or wording that appear only inside the guide. Where the guide and the regulation differ, the regulation and the Manual of Standards control.
