Tue, Jan 04, 2011
Bi-Lateral Negotiations May Soon Open On N-Register Aircraft
Proposal
Pilots and operators of aircraft on the N-register continue to
be caught in between Europe and America as the two countries
attempt to resolve trade issues, and the IAOPA says in its most
recent newsletter that the future does not look promising.
EASA's proposals to "hamstring" N-registered operators in Europe
have been put back to 2014, and are now said to be subject to
bilateral negotiations which may or may not produce a workable
compromise - and the pilot's organization says the evidence of
recent history indicates that no user-friendly solution is likely
to be found.
At its December meeting the EASA Comitology Committee postponed
from 2012 to 2014 the adoption of EASA's proposals on third country
licensing. In the meantime the committee hopes the matter can be
dealt with by way of bilateral agreements between Europe and
America. In fact the first bilateral - known as a BASA - is due in
spring, although it makes no mention of licensing. The hope is that
flight crew licensing agreements can be added later by way of
amendments.
AOPA's lobbying of members of the EASA Comitology Committee and
European Commission indicated that while they were wary of the
damage EASA's proposals would cause, they were more concerned about
the ability of national aviation authorities to handle the change
from national to EASA licences, and the introduction of new
third-country rules at the same time might be too much to cope
with. IAOPA Senior Vice President Martin Robinson says: "The
difficulty when it comes to lobbying on these issues is that
everyone agrees with you, but won't change position. Nobody claims
there is a safety issue, everyone accepts that the economic damage
will be substantial, yet the status quo is impossible to
maintain."
"Everyone says they want full reciprocity from the other side,
while secretly trying to give less than they receive," he
continued. "Full reciprocity would be great for general aviation as
long as we had a sensible validation system; imagine if you had an
FAA IR and the process for converting it to a European equivalent
was simple and sensible. But how likely is that? At the root of the
argument is government support for Boeing and Airbus, and
everything from downline repair station charges to pilot licensing
is governed by that. We are small cogs in a large intercontinental
dispute, and bigger wheels are going to grind us up."
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