AOC questions

[skybird]

I'm doing research on Air Operators Certificates for work. I hope someone out there can help.
What is the difference between AOCs? Are there different levels of AOC available, or is it standard across Europe? Do carriers on other continents, eg Africa, comply with the same AOC standards as UK or is it different?

Many thanks!

[HZ123]

Some of the AOC's should be standardised in the EU and should utilise the JAROPS discipline. As with everthing though I believe there are only 33 signatories to it in the EU and the USA does its own thing on both counts. Many countrys are also limited to their level of compliance and conformance because of financial constraints. I believe that long term the idea is to have a regulatory standard that would be applied worldwide, but its likely sucess might be compared to organisations such as NATO and the UN ? In other words many countrys AOC's are directed by their CAA and conform only if it suits them.

[Boss Raptor]

The worldwide standard albeit guidelines for compliance are the (updated) ICAO Annexes to the Chicago Convention 1944 in particular Annex 6 'Operation of Aircraft'.

These have been in place for many years and are adopted by all signatories to the Convention however each individual country may file 'Differences' which are detailed in addendum to the appropriate Annex.

The question of differing standards of implementation, execution, supervision and safety oversight however is a very wide one - there are in my experience differences between many JAR European countries, that's even before we start to contemplate other continents

An AOC can be issued limited to certain geographic regions or 'world wide', it can limit aircraft weight or will detail specific aircraft type in larger weight bracket, it can be 'Passenger' or 'Cargo' or both...