Reciprocal agreement with the EU on the transfer of UK CAA Flight Crew Licences

[Paul Rice]

The Government has responded to the petition you signed – “Reciprocal agreement with the EU on the transfer of UK CAA Flight Crew Licences. (https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/578133)”.

Government responded:
The UK Government is supporting UK aviation as we recover from the Pandemic and deliver the benefits of EU Exit. We will explore future agreements with the EU if it is in our interest to do so.
The UK Government places the highest importance on ensuring that the opportunities arising from our exit from the European Union are realised. Withdrawing from the European Union means we have more autonomy to tailor aviation regulation according to the UKs competitive needs, while also adhering to international standards.

As part of the preparations for negotiations on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) reached with the EU, detailed consideration was given to the future relationship between the UK and EU on aviation, including whether to seek UK participation in the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) as a third country. Within the TCA, we have agreed a chapter on Aviation Safety with an annex on Airworthiness. There is potential to consider further Annexes to the agreement in the future, including on personnel licensing, if both sides wish to do so.

However, should an agreement on licensing be assessed to be in the UK’s overall interest, we do not expect to secure this for some time, and it would require willingness from the EU as well. We are continuing to work to ensure an effective licensing regime supports UK aviation and delivering effective implementation of the existing agreement with the EU.
The Government is aware that holders of UK pilots licenses wishing to seek a license conversion from competent authorities of EU Member States in order to operate European registered aircraft are likely to encounter a cost and training burden. This process is a requirement implemented by the European Commission and applies in respect of all non-EASA licences, regardless of the State that issued the license.

In advance of EU Exit, the UK CAA provided advice and guidance to support holders of UK pilot’s licenses to transfer to an alternative EU State license. We are aware that many pilots chose to do so. At present, EU licences issued before 31 December 2020 will continue to be treated as if they were issued by the CAA until 31 December 2022, and pilots can be issued with a UK PO license. Pilots with a licence issued by an EASA state can continue to operate UK registered aircraft under a general validation, but only until 31 December 2022. After that they will need a UK licence.

The Government’s decision to maintain the validity of European licences, certificates and approvals was embodied in the Withdrawal Act. This decision was taken to ensure continuity for industry in the immediate period after the end of the Transition Period and provide ease for pilots and industry.

The Department for Transport has launched the Aviation Skills Retention Platform. This platform will allow former and current aviation sector workers who are currently out of work to register their skills, so they can be notified of relevant jobs opportunities, advice and upskilling opportunities. This platform is a tool for the future, which will aim to retain vital skills within the industry and help address the skills gap that existed prior to the pandemic. The scheme is open to anyone from the aviation sector who is looking for a vacancy. Since the start of the launch over 3,500 vacancies have been listed. For more information, please visit www.aviationtalent.co.uk (http://www.aviationtalent.co.uk/).

The Government will continue to engage with the EU on future areas of safety cooperation where it can support industry while aligning with our objectives. We will also continue to work closely with industry and stakeholders to ensure that we make best use of the opportunities we now have, and to protect and enhance the sector’s skills and talent now and in the future.

Department for Transport

[Paul Rice]

"As part of the preparations for negotiations on the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) reached with the EU, detailed consideration was given to the future relationship between the UK and EU on aviation, including whether to seek UK participation in the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) as a third country."

Why did the UK Government decide to leave EASA ? Creating a situation were British Licensed Pilots are unable to apply for work with employers inside the United Kingdom.

The UK Government is not supporting UK aviation as we recover from the pandemic instead they have created a situation were British Pilots cannot even apply for work in their own country and only European Licences are being accepted by major employers in Great Britain.

Revoking our EASA Licences and replacing them with UK only Licences was an act of ideological stupidity which has caused British pilots to be out of work.

"However, should an agreement on licensing be assessed to be in the UK’s overall interest, we do not expect to secure this for some time"

The UK Government must re-join EASA immediately The whole point of international air travel is the rapid crossing international boundaries and to facilitate communication with distant countries. To do this the aviation industry is standardised on a European and Global level like no other industry and the idea that the United Kingdom can stand outside of international co-operation and set its own rules for its own bespoke niche requirements simply does not work.

[Uplinker]

UK pilots have been thrown under the bus - for reasons unclear, but pertaining to "the UK's overall interest". I understand how the coal miners probably felt now, (1984-1985): forced out of work as a result of some political argument.

Me and thousands of others had an EASA licence - it says so on the front. All the exams, paperwork, air tests, medical etc, were all EASA compliant - yet overnight, we are suddenly allegedly non EASA compliant !

Why we allow EU pilots to fly here when they refuse to allow a reciprocal arrangement seems utterly perverse to me. Those of us with previous valid EASA licences should at least be granted grandfather rights.

[Groundloop]

"
Why did the UK Government decide to leave EASA ? "


The reason has been given many times. It was a political decision because membership of EASA would have required agreeing to rulings by the European Court of Justice. Brexit dogma simply does not allow this.

[Contact Approach]

Why exactly aren’t EASA issuing grandfather rights to those who previously held U.K. EASA licences?

[FlyingStone]

I'm guessing because a large majority of the pilots, who didn't manag to transfer the licence before Brexit aren't citizens or residents of EASA member states.

[Contact Approach]

Thats pretty irrelevant. A lot of U.K. based jobs require an EASA licence currently.

[FlyingStone]

And what problem is there to "solve" from EASA's perspective?

[pug]

Uplinker

I agree with most of that, the baby and bath water approach by the current Government isn’t really helping anyone. Hopefully there’ll be a more progressive option to vote for in the next general election.

The EU are not to blame though, the U.K. has left EU and EASA by its own decision, it is therefore up to the U.K. and the U.K. alone to decide what is acceptable, but with EASA it has all of its member states to consider. So it is the U.K. government that has thrown us under a bus, not EASA. There is nothing stopping any of us forking out for an EASA licence, but it’s pretty pointless if we don’t have the right to live and work in an EU member state, which is what ‘we’ voted for, isn’t it?

[Contact Approach]

There is no problem to solve. A simple application of common sense would do the trick.

[FlyingStone]

It's inherently a political issue. Most of the UK licence holders that are looking to regain their EASA licence will be British citizens.

What you are looking for is EASA to make favours to British citizens, so they can better compete for jobs with EASA licence holders (who are predominantly EU citizens). I really wonder why EASA isn't working on this as their top priority, I really wonder...

There were numerous opportunities for people of UK to apply common sense between 23rd June 2016 and 31st January 2020, but alas...

[skankhunt42]

British pilots haven't been disadvantaged by Brexit, UK licence holders have. We must make the distinction between British pilots and UK licence holders. Those jobs in the UK that require EASA licences will still only be accessible to those with the right to live and work in the UK.

[IrishLady]

Well said, this was political coupe de grace to ALL UK pilots. Nothing was so much destroyed by so many politicians in such a pretty short time!

[king surf]

As I have said before in other threads I cannot get my head around why so many pilots at the company I work for voted leave.

[biddedout]

Me too, although one pilot told me during a short flight to our closest trading neighbour that his leave vote would give the CAA more teeth.:ugh:

The act of voting to leave didn't bring about this situation, It was the fact that Johnson achieved his huge majority by blatantly lying about an amazing oven ready deal when all along he and Frost were planning to get as close as possible to crashing out with no deal. Standard Johnson, throw red meat to his base and the ERG, and then try to kick the problem down the road and fudge and bluster around it later., blaming everyone but themselves for the mess they created. They had no interest in any detail, they just wanted to drag something that wasn't going to damage them politically in the short term, knowing all along that they would later try to break agreements that they negotiated in ban faith This cobbled together strategy might have worked if they had Trump to provide some distracting top-cover but without him we will only suffer more and the EU-US relationship will grow. It is obvious what they are doing but their commons majority just means that they will continue to push ahead on this diplomatic suicide mission causing a huge amount of damage to the UK and its reputation in the world along the way.

So we are screwed and it will all get a lot worse before people wake up and realise that there is more to the story than what they read in the Telegraph and the Murdoch press.

[Contact Approach]

FlyingStone

Pathetic by all accounts.

[Banana Joe]

No, not pathetic. He wrote facts.

[FlyingStone]

Contact Approach

Which part exactly?

[OhNoCB]

It's pretty much just the unfortunate reality. I say unfortunate on a personal level as I am an affected EU citizen now stuck with a UK licence, as my employment prevented me from transferring. As such, I do take issue with the stance that "UK licence holders had plenty of time to transfer", because for myself and many friends and colleagues, this was not an option without becoming unemployed.

[biddedout]

I see the CAA have become a little tardy in publishing their board minutes of late (Latest March 21). A shame really as it would be interesting to see how much attention they were paying to this mess that they were involved in creating.
Earlier minutes showed them slapping themselves on the back for being so clever at clearing the backlog of applications for last minute licence swaps even though a that point no one knew that there would be no licence reciprocity in the oven ready deal. In the summary of the TCA, Johnson was boasting about his fantastic oven ready deal having professional qualification recognition. Someone is lying.

[Denti]

biddedout
Well as in all those texts, one has to read very careful. The summary says there is a framework for professional qualification recognition (but not recognition in itself), which can be done in the future on a profession by profession basis. The only one implemented from the start was a very narrow recognition of legal services.

That said, the EU only regulates very few professions to begin with, most are nationally regulated in each EU and EFTA country and not subject to EU agreements. Some of those few are pilots and ATCOs. For most professions the UK has to negotiate with every single one of the EU and EFTA countries, basically nearly all UK earned degrees and qualifications are worthless in the EU, which, i am sure, will give a big boost to the UKs university sector.

[Flying Clog]

I think what a lot of you are failing to realise is;

The UK CAA wound down when the UK became EASA. Then Brexit happened, for better or worse. And the EU took a hard stance and shafted the UK in every possible way in the divorce, out of spite I suppose, and probably to prevent EU/Leaver fever from catching on in many other countries who would love to leave the EU. Denmark, Holland?

The UK CAA was caught in the cross fire, and they've had to recover back to fully operational status. Not easy to do in the middle of a pandemic.

It's pretty bad timing, and very unfortunate for all our British licence holder friends. Just bad luck. But hopefully things get sorted eventually.

[biddedout]

Well top marks to someone in the CAA today. Within a few hours of my post #20 above, six months worth of CAA Board Minutes have been uploaded onto the CAA site. Quickest response ever and good to see they monitor Prune so closely.

Unfortunately other than a few comments about departmental workload processing applications, there is no obvious acknowledgement from the board in any of the minutes that UK licence holders have been completely shafted.

[Ancient Observer]

bidded,

I know that many of the CAA folk are not loved by Aviation, but quite a few of them read this site. Probably not the folk responsible for publishing minutes, tho'.

[Denti]

Flying Clog

Really? That old thing again? No, the EU did not try to shaft the UK, that was the UK government all by itself. It is very simple: The EU is a rule based organization with its own fixed and written Treaty (constitution), something the UK is inherently unfamiliar with. According to that treaty once a country leaves, all treaties cease to apply for them at that date, except if anything else is negotiated. And the UK simply did not want to stay in EASA, although that option was of course there. Same as Erasmus+, the single market and so on. It was simply a purely political choice done by the UK, not the EU. In fact, the EU in many areas bends over backwards to accommodate those caught between the lines, like pilots for example with an extremely non-standard and very very easy way to get an EASA license which is not available to any other third country, and without any base in either the TCA nor any treaties, which might open those licenses up to legal review of their status.

[Contact Approach]

Denti you’re a broken record mate. Any pilot who defends this political :mad: storm deserves a career in politics, not aviation.

[Denti]

I certainly do not defend the problems the UK government caused by its decisions. Remember, the UK government decided to leave the EU and also decided how it wanted to leave it. Causing all this mayhem. If one is to blame: it is the Johnson administration and his unelected lackey Lord Snowflake.

[Contact Approach]

So what has any of that got to do with pilots?

[Banana Joe]

No offence meant, but comprehension really isn't your strong point, eh?

[pug]

Perhaps a gentle nudge in the direction pilots may wish to vote in the next general election should they want a reasonable solution to this predicament to be made.

It’s quite clear that this mess has been orchestrated by those in Government who wanted to completely remove the U.K. from any ECJ jurisdiction, and that has therefore precluded our membership of EASA.

Its all well and good making off the cuff remarks about the EU on a thread which has been negated as a direct result of politics, but the facts must be pointed out clearly as to not allow the continued sloping shoulders approach to the decisions made by those in our elected parliament, and the finger being pointed solely at the EU, which is wholly inaccurate.

[pug]

Who is taking aim at U.K. Licenced pilots? I know a fair few who voted leave but who say they didn’t vote to leave EASA. I still wouldn’t take aim at them, despite the irony. I do think the point is lost on you somewhat. Unless you’re advocating a Globally recognised licence, in which case I would tend to agree, but that then also comes down to politics.

[Contact Approach]

Thats exactly what I am getting at which has clearly been lost on some here, who seem only to want to focus on what’s broken rather than how to fix it.

[Sirboeing]

Sorry!!…. guidance required regards the dreaded EASA/UK licence drama please…

I currently hold a valid rating issued by GCAA, operating for a major player in the middle east (which adheres to EASA rules). I also hold a ‘UK issued EASA licence’ which was issued in 2013 (IR expired).

UK CAA have confirmed that my UK issued EASA licence will revert back to a UK licence automatically. They also confirmed that I can transfer my current rating onto my UK licence, which will reset the 7 year IR cycle with no requirement to resit any theoretical examinations with the CAA. This can only be done as my operator conforms to ICAO third country regulations.

My main question is…….Has anyone done something similar with regards to the EASA licence? Are there any EU states that will still allow me to retain my EASA licence privileges, either via SOLI, rating transfer or conversion from UK/CAA licence to EASA state etc, without any need to retake any theoretical examinations?

Is anyone in a similar situation or can share any ideas/solutions?
Thanks

[SID PLATE]

Denti

"Remember, the UK government decided ...." I'm not keen on being lectured, and this statement is incorrect. The electorate of the UK , (which is us), decided to leave the EU. The EU, to a great extent, was responsible for the terms under which we left.
You may not agree with the outcome of the referendum, but we live in a democratic country. I could be suggested that your energies might be more usefully spent by suggesting a solution, rather than apportioning blame ?

[Denti]

Actually, the electorate voted a tory government into power several times. That is all they did. The referendum was an advisory referendum only, it was the governments decision, backed by parliament, to leave the EU. Or did you see 17 million signatures on the letter invoking article 50? Governments can disregard advisory referendum outcomes if they think those are stupid, trust me, i have seen that several times now over here.

The EU had certain red lines of course, same as the UK, but always left the choice on what to do to the UK government. It was the UK governments decision not to stay in EURATOM (an entity independent, but closely aligned with the EU), same as it was its decision to leave EASA. And that has led to the current mess with licenses. And yet again, EASA makes it as easy as possible to get an EASA license for UK license holders, without much base in treaties and hard law, trying to help as much as possible. No help at all of course is forthcoming from the UK government, not that anybody would expect that in the first place.

[nomilk]

Seems you need to be lectured. The electorate might have decided to leave the EU but the EU is not EASA. There was no box to be ticked for EASA nor would most voters even know who or what EASA is. To leave EASA was the decision of the UK government.

[FlyingStone]

Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Iceland seem to be doing just fine outside of EU, but still with EASA licences (among other things).

So it would seem EASA membership while being outside of EU is clearly possible.

[Contact Approach]

Would it not be easier to just accept the fact that those who held easa licences pre brexit should still be entitled to hold easa licences again regardless of the U.K. or brexit? I mean all of the training and standards were the same before 1st jan and to a large extent remain the same so on a practical level it makes no difference whatsoever. The only difference is politics. Its time we had a globally recognised licence and cohesion because all of this conversion nonsense is just ridiculous. The last time I checked an ILS was An ILS and an airbus was an airbus whatever it’s reg or wherever it was being operated!? And I thought the objective of our industry was to connect the world after all!?

[FlyingStone]

Of course it's political, it always was. You could argue the same for passports - why are British people, who held an EU passport not too long ago, suddenly disadvantaged when it comes to right to leave or work?

Since you mention that an Airbus is an Airbus and an ILS is an ILS... Would you be happy if Romanian or Bulgarian operator started flying domestic UK routes tomorrow? Surely an operator with EASA AOC is just as qualified to fly UK domestic routes as UK airlines are?

[Contact Approach]

I couldn’t care less which operator was flying domestic U.K. routes to be honest. Just as Europeans don’t mind an Irish airline flying domestically across the whole continent…

[pug]

FlyingStone

Not sure I understand your point. The public apparently voted to end freedom of movement, we U.K. passport holders are therefore no longer able to live and work freely in an EU country as before. Or are you of the view that the British should just get all the benefits of EU membership without the membership/reciprocity?

Call me naive, but I thought those sort of views had been put to bed now.

Same applies to EASA, the CAA are in a position to do what they like with regards licensing recognition, it’s not quite so simple within EASA without a BASA in place. So if the Government are reluctant to enter discussions about this, then it’s not going to happen. Bitter pill to swallow perhaps, but the U.K. is not as influential as we may like it to be any more.

[BBK]

Sirboeing

i asked a European agency about the requirements regarding UK to EASA at PPL level and it was as follows: 5 hours dual, skills test, EASA medical and ground study followed by a test. I’m just considering whether it’s worth the hassle for a few hours every year. If you’re in the UK I believe there’s a club at Stapleford that have EASA approval and likewise there is an AME at LGW who has AME approval. Appreciate you’re asking about ATPL but maybe try them.

As for the politics there is no escaping the fact that the CAA wanted to remain in EASA so I can only assume that the reason they could not was down to political considerations regarding the ECJ having jurisdiction. There was a RAes paper with detailed analysis so it’s not like these problems weren’t foreseen. Brexit, IMHO, is a mess and was always going to be so as divorces often are. The Brexit voting public should have conducted a thorough cost/benefit analysis before voting yes. The benefits, if you can call them that, might have been obvious but the true cost is only emerging now.

[deltahotel]

I couldn’t care less which operator was flying domestic U.K. routes to be honest. Just as Europeans don’t mind a EUROPEAN airline flying domestically across the whole continent…

There - that reads better

[Banana Joe]

He still won't get it. Even if he probably flies for that airline.

[deltahotel]

There's a bunch of stuff here form a different part of this site that may or may not help.

Good luck

https://www.pprune.org/rotorheads/643298-convert-easa-atplh-uk-atplh-2.html

[SimoFly]

The way I see it and I really hope to be proved wrong is that the UK CAA has created a system to make easy money through these conversions applications. It doesn't make any sense to me to hear that they are waiting for my easa authority to reply while the easa authority gave me the proof that they have actually gave all the necessary replies since August 2021. I think it is just a way to receive money but I am not sure I will ever receive my UK license and that's because I live in Europe even if I have British permanent residency. I lived long enough in UK to understand the "modus operandi" of certain institutions. We are just paying the price for this political mess...

[deltahotel]

Simo. The CAA just works slowly through the massive pile of applications. I have colleagues who are still waiting for their licences to be issued. Mine took 6 weeks from confirmation of verification, others longer.