) stating
that they are also going for the 2-year derogation.EASA/EU regulation to hit FAA licensed pilots in Europe
EASA has managed to introduce a law which requires all pilots whose "operator" is resident in the EU to have EASA licenses and medicals - even if the aircraft is registered outside the EU. These licenses would be in addition to the State of Registry (e.g. FAA) licenses required by ICAO.
The Basic Regulation (216/2008) says:
1. Aircraft, including any installed product, part and appliance, which are:
...
(c) registered in a third country and used by an operator for which any Member
State ensures oversight of operations or used into, within or out of the Community
by an operator established or residing in the Community;
...
shall comply with this Regulation.
2. Personnel involved in the operations of aircraft referred to in paragraph
1(b), (c) or (d) shall comply with this Regulation.
Nobody knows how the "operator" and the other terms such as "residing in the Community" are defined. Clearly, many operators of foreign registered jets will be able to arrange a non-EU operating base, but ordinary private owner-pilots will not be able to do this easily. The residence or citizenship of the pilot himself is on the face of it not relevant (but see notes on the derogations below).
This is bad news for N-reg owner/pilots who make up the bulk of Europe's IFR-capable pilot community. A private IFR pilot would have to get the 7-exam JAA IR and a JAA Class 1 medical, or a Class 2 medical with the Class 1 audiogram. Plus of course a JAA PPL. A commercial IFR pilot would have to get the 14-exam JAA CPL/IR, and a JAA Class 1 medical. He would not need to do an EASA Type Rating however; his existing ICAO one would be acceptable to EASA, under the current proposals.
There is absolutely no safety case for this move; it is based on politics of envy, FTO and other business protectionism, airline pilot union pressure, and some unrelated EU-USA disputes thrown in.
More
information
A
detailed paper (local copy)
A
very clear explanatory article
Additional
background to the EU-USA politics
EU Transport Committee interrogation of EASA (9 Oct 2010)
Of the five or so concurrent EASA initiatives, the relevant one is the Basic Regulation. This is an "enabling regulation" on which the detailed regulations would be built. It is an old trick; you introduce a law which is worded such that nobody can politically oppose it, and then use that to sneak in the hard stuff.
According to this proposal (pages 7 and 9; some inconsistencies re the ICAO v. EASA Type Certificate requirement on a privately operated aircraft) EASA is not currently going to evict foreign registered aircraft from the EU. However, "complex aircraft" (basically, ME turboprops, all jets, aircraft over 5700kg or having 19+ seats) will be subject to EASA Part M maintenance oversight. No details are out yet, and it is not clear how this will work since - under ICAO provisions - an EASA maintenance company has no competence to sign a release to service for an aircraft of non-EASA registry, especially if the aircraft contains modifications installed under the rules of the non-EASA registry.
Additional background on placing and keeping an aircraft on the FAA registration is here and more information on the recent EASA moves are at the end of that article under "The Future of N-reg".
To get an indication of the people in the EU who are behind this initiative, watch this video. Mr Goudou (head of EASA) appears around 17:44 and under questioning by the Chairman (who appears to be fairly well informed) dismisses the thousands of pilots who have written to their MEPs as a bunch of liars. Later, near the end, Mr Seebohm (an EU aviation official) says that there are areas where there is no EU regulation and therefore they must generate some.
The process which EASA followed to achieve this has been less than open. Some history follows:
On 19/12/2010 (local copy) EASA managed to get its FCL proposal passed through Comitology, with some not yet published changes. Some info, including links to clearly sanitised Minutes of the comitology proceedings, can be found here. The composition of the committee has been secret; presumably nobody wants to be seen to be openly screwing GA.
The UK CAA notes on the above are here (local copy). They add little new information other than to show how confused the CAA is about a lot of the stuff coming out of EASA. An updated version of the foregoing doc is here (local copy). A later update is here (local copy).
A January 2011 UK AOPA update is here local copy. Nothing really new there.
This document (local copy) is a more recent version of the EASA FCL proposal and is being discussed by the EU Transport committee on 25/5/2011.
6/2011: The UK CAA has published its proposals on amending UK legislation (the ANO) to comply with forthcoming EASA directives here (local copy). Article 61 has the anti-N-reg stuff, but the CAA requires both the pilot and the operator to be non EU resident, whereas EASA requires only the operator to be non EU resident. The CAA has also published a Q&A on the changes here (local copy); this document correctly shows the "operator" terminology, and clearly shows the CAA going for the 2-year derogation which means a UK based operator does not need to force the pilot to have a JAA IR until 2014. A later version of that doc, showing updates in italics, is here (local copy) - 1(d) on page 15 - and the corresponding FAQ is here.
8/2011: The EU has voted in favour of implementing the EASA FCL proposals. Bad news... More info here.
11/2011: The EU has passed most of the FCL stuff into law here (local copy). Nothing unexpected in there. It's worth noting that the IR still requires the audiogram in each ear separately on the initial medical, despite me having been told in 2008 by Eric Sivel (EASA's then head of rulemaking) that the initial v. renewal dictinction will be ended by EASA. This is the normal pattern of EASA behaviour: tell different things to different people.
1/2012: I obtained my insurance policy against the above proposals by getting the JAA IR (I already had a UK/JAA PPL). The conversion process from the FAA IR to the JAA IR is described here. In short, it is 7 exams plus 15hrs minimum flying time. It wasn't "hard" but took up a fair bit of time. The resulting papers are not even valid under ICAO to fly the aircraft outside UK airspace (ref FAR 61.3) but that's life....
3/2012: The Irish CAA has published this (local copy) which on page 19 suggests they are going for a 2 year derogation too. However on page 9 this appear to incorrectly use "pilot" instead of "operator".
3/2012: The Netherlands CAA has published a doc
(in Dutch ) stating
that they are also going for the 2-year derogation.
8/APR/2012: EASA FCL is now law in the EU. Today, the pilots whose operator is based in the EU are vulnerable to arrest, etc, unless they have EASA papers, or the country has applied for the derogation.
Some additional text is here (local copy). Here is a great article by a well known German aviation writer.
Among many vague areas of this stupid European regulation is whether the 2-year derogation (which each EU country has to apply for individually) means that pilots whose operator is based in that country can freely fly around the EU during the derogation period without risking arrest elsewhere in the EU, or whether it means that pilots flying into the country which applied for the derogation are safe there. This remains unresolved, but this UK document suggests the UK sees the former interpretation as more likely (para 3.1, bottom of page 1). This also suggests that the UK could, during its derogation period, arrest a pilot who flew into the UK and whose operator is based in a country which didn't apply for the derogation (in practice, this means pilots from most of the EU can be arrested).
There is some unfortunate wording that has crept into the derogation provisions:
Then the Aircrew Regulation (1178/2011) says:
Article 3
Pilot licensing and medical certification
Without prejudice to Article 7, pilots of aircraft referred to in Article 4(1)(b)
and (c) and Article 4(5) of Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 shall comply with the
technical requirements and administrative procedures laid down in Annex I and
Annex IV to this Regulation.
Article 8
Conditions for the acceptance of licences from third countries
1. Without prejudice to Article 12 of Regulation (EC) No 216/2008 and where
there are no agreements concluded between the Union and a third country covering
pilot licensing, Member States may accept third country licences, and associated
medical certificates issued by or on behalf of third countries, in accordance
with the provisions of Annex III to this Regulation.
Article 12
Entry into force and application
4. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, Member States may decide not to apply
the provisions of this Regulation to pilots holding a licence and associated
medical certificate issued by a third country involved in the non-commercial
operation of aircraft specified in Article 4(1)(b) or (c) of Regulation (EC)
No 216/2008 until 8 April 2014.
ANNEX III
CONDITIONS FOR THE ACCEPTANCE OF LICENCES ISSUED BY OR ON BEHALF OF THIRD COUNTRIES
A. VALIDATION OF LICENCES
General
1. A pilot licence issued in compliance with the requirements of Annex 1 to
the Chicago Convention by a third country may be validated by the competent
authority of a Member State.
Pilots shall apply to the competent authority of the Member State where they reside or are established, or, if they are not residing in the territory of the Member States, where the operator for which they are flying or intend to fly has its principal place of business.
So the emphasis in the derogation provisions has shifted from the residence of the operator to the residence of the pilot. This is of little consequence to the typical private owner-pilot but would affect larger operators. It's not clear whether this is intentional or is a drafting cockup.
As for penalties, nobody yet knows but presumably this will mirror the current penalty for flying without an appropriate licence ie £5,000 on summary convicton or a (unlimited) fine and/or up to 2 years imprisonment on conviction on indictment.
This stuff is straight out of Kafka.
How much time to sort out this mess?
There are in fact two kinds of derogation, available to each EU country, and each country has to apply to EASA for each one as required:
The first is the "horizontal" derogation which was included in the 30th March 2012 Regulation:
"By way of derogation from paragraph 1, Member States may decide not to apply the provisions of Annexes I to IV until 8 April 2013".
Annexes I-IV are all of Part FCL and Part MED so this derogation deals with the N-reg issue at least until April 2013. It is expected that most EU countries will apply for this one, because they need the time to comply with the full impact of EASA FCL etc.
The second is the derogation applicable to the N-reg issue, which was originally provided by EASA, which can run till April 2014. It is clear that most EU countries have not applied for this one (probably because most were not aware of it).
A good explanation is here (local copy).
An EASA page carrying more information is here
but the "third country operators" section is empty
Here (local copy) is the latest guidance from the UK CAA. Nothing new in there. The usual stuff about "operator based in the EU" is on the bottom of page 11, and the CAA does not try to clarify that. I recently met a top official from there who advised me they don't have any idea on how to interpret it!
France (translated local copy another unofficial translation) has applied for derogation. In article 4, they say that "French national licences (non-JAR FCL)" may be used until april 8th 2014, after that date, the pilot of a "national" licence shall convert it to an EASA licence to exercise the privileges. They will start issuing PART-FCL licences on April 8th 2013 but in article 5(f) they clarify the N-reg situation and confirm that an EASA licence won't be required until 2014 for "European Operators".
Ireland
has indicated they might, but they have misunderstood the regs anyway
by hanging the dual papers requirement on the residence of the pilot, not the
operator...
Switzerland is assuring its pilots they will be OK, but that page does not mention the issue. Switzerland is not in the EU, so its status is unclear.
Germany,
in an English statement, seems to have gone for 1 year. On March 26th, the German
LBA put a German statement
online announcing a one year horizontal derogation of regulation 1178/2011.
The English version of the statement (previous link) contains an unfortunate
translation error: it mentions 2012 instead of
2013. The statement was issued before the horizontal derogation became available
via the regulation 290/2012 (published on April 5th, applicable as of April
25th).
Netherlands is also believed to have gone for the maximum 2 years.
A list of countries which are opting out of any part of EASA FCL appears here.
It looks like a number have published stuff on their national websites but haven't
told EASA yet
This page last edited 15th May 2012
Any feedback, reports of dead links, corrections or suggestions much appreciated: