The French-led working group that aims to create a new world of light-touch regulation for European general aviation has produced a set of guiding principles for EASA which will be considered by the Agency’s Board of Management next week. Although the full details are confidential, the basic tenets are that there should be no regulation without a specific safety aim, and every new regulation should be tested with a full risk analysis and a cost-benefit study before it is imposed. The group wants EASA to move completely away from the ‘top-down’ concept of creating regulations for Commercial Air Transport then imposing them on GA, sometimes in a slightly watered-down form. It wants EASA to adopt the ICAO stance, which specifically states that authorities do not owe the same duty of care to GA participants as they do to paying customers of the airlines and uninvolved third parties.
The group is much more than a think-tank, and includes representatives of EASA and the European Commission, who have indicated that they go along with the consensus view. It was set up at the behest of EASA’s Board of Management following a presentation to the Board by IAOPA Senior Vice President Martin Robinson, who sits of the group together with AOPA Germany’s Managing Director Dr Michael Erb.
The general view is that Annex 6, part 1, of ICAO’s Chicago Convention covers general aviation regulation sufficiently well, and if EASA wishes to go beyond it, then it has to be addressing a demonstrated safety problem and its response should be proportionate to the risk and the cost. European states are signatories to the Convention whereas Europe as an entity is not, and the EC does not consider EASA to be bound by its provisions. The states, however, have relied on ICAO for guidance since the Second World War, and it has not been found wanting.
There is a real chance that this revolutionary approach will be officially adopted, and GA could enjoy a more prosperous future freed of the burden of excess bureaucracy and unnecessary cost inherent in over-regulation. A new Transport Commissioner takes over at the EC in 2014, and the ‘new broom’ could provide the perfect opportunity for a fundamental change of philosophy. The working group has made specific suggestions on guaranteed grandfather rights, and clarity in rulemaking. EASA’s regulations are written by lawyers – the Agency carries no liability insurance – and it’s sometimes necessary for a pilot to read hundreds of pages of legalese, correctly cross-referencing other documents and interpreting inconsistencies, before he knows what he’s allowed to do. Ambiguity, opacity and inconsistency are dangerous to aviation.
Martin Robinson says: “We must congratulate the French CAA, the DGAC, for their support and their work on this issue. The DGAC has a requirement in France to ensure there is always a market place for aviation, and they are rightly proud of their aviation history.
“The wind of change is blowing through Cologne, and the changes are fundamental and positive. As far as GA is concerned, the first instinct of EASA should be to do nothing. The risks of GA to uninvolved third parties are so minuscule as to be largely irrelevant. These facts should guide EASA’s thinking.”
The question now is how the new philosophy can be applied to EASA regulations that have already been imposed. EASA’s Aviation Training Organisation rules are a case in point. A flight training organisation which is not owned by its members is deemed to be a commercial operation, subject to all of EASA’s requirements for CAT. Trial lessons are deemed to be commercial operations, which means flying clubs will have to dedicate an aircraft, with an AOC, a detailed ops manual, and a commercial pilot to fly it, if they want to do trial lessons. The horse has bolted on this one, and according to EASA it cannot be changed without changing the wording of the Basic Regulation, the EC bible which governs what EASA does. Obviously it will be easy to get around this particular problem – just call it a ‘first lesson’ instead of a trial lesson – but other EASA regulations will not be so simple to finesse, and GA will have to rely on a certain amount of goodwill from national authorities in their interpretations.
While the working group was originally only scheduled to meet twice, provision has been made for it to meet again in the light of the response of the Board of Management next week.
(Source: IAOPA Europe Monthly Enews)
