Stage: Final Publications

Regulatory Agency Final Publications

Opinion 05/2017 Amendments to Commission Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011 – Flight Crew Licensing

The objective of this Opinion is to address a safety and regulatory coordination issue related to flight crew licensing (FCL).

The main objective of this Opinion is to resolve any inconsistencies identified after the adoption of the FCL implementing rules. This is necessary to ensure that the European aviation regulatory system reflects the state of the art, and specifically the best practices developed in the Member States, in the field of pilot training, testing and checking. The specific objective of this Opinion is to maintain a high level of safety, to ensure harmonised implementation of Commission Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Aircrew Regulation’), and to consider at all levels the importance of General Aviation (GA) issues.

This Opinion proposes changes to the rule text of ‘Annex I — Part-FCL’, ‘Annex II — Conditions for the conversion of existing national licences and ratings for aeroplanes and helicopters’, and ‘Annex III — Conditions for the acceptance of licences issued by or on behalf of third countries’.

The proposed changes are expected to increase safety, reduce regulatory burden on Member States, improve harmonisation within the EASA Member States, ensure compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requirements, and improve proportionality of the rules for GA by applying the principles of the ‘General Aviation Road Map’.

EASA Opinion 04/2017 Update of the rules on air operations and continuing airworthiness

The objective of this Opinion is to maintain a high level of safety in air operations by proposing amendments to Regulation (EU) No 965/2012 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Air OPS Regulation’). The proposed amendments apply to all Parts of the Regulation (Definitions, Part-ARO, Part-ORO, Part-CAT, Part-SPA, Part-NCC, Part-NCO, Part-SPO).

This Opinion includes also the outcome of RMT.0352 on non-commercial operation of aircraft by a holder of an air operator certificate (AOC) proposing to remove the prior approval of the operational procedures used for non-commercial flights when these procedures differ from those employed in a commercial air transport (CAT) operation. It also introduces a regulatory framework to allow the use of aircraft registered on an AOC by other operators for other-than-CAT operations, and as a result, proposes an amendment to Part-M of Regulation (EU) No 1321/2014 (hereinafter referred to as the ‘Continuing Airworthiness Regulation’).

The proposed changes are expected to ensure alignment with ICAO. In addition, through said changes, EASA expects to ensure an efficient and proportionate set of implementing rules (IRs) and acceptable means of compliance (AMC)/guidance material (GM) on air operations and to resolve any inconsistencies identified following the adoption of the Air OPS Regulation, reflecting thus the state of the art and best practices in the fields concerned. The addition to the maintenance programme in Part-M mirrors the changes to the operational requirements brought about by RMT.0352.For information, EASA developed the related draft AMC/GM which are published for information together with this Opinion.