rwm - You seem to have missed the fundamemtal point here. An EASA licence is only an EASA licence if it is issued and administered by the competent authority of a Member State. The UK government has said that the UK CAA will cease to be a part of the EASA system in December. That will mean that every licence that the CAA HAS EVER ISSUED WILL CEASE TO BE A VALID EASA LICENCE on that date. It makes no difference what it says on the licence, it will not be valid for working on EASA aircraft, any more than a licence issued by Russia, Australia, or the USA with "EASA" printed on it would be an EASA licence.
If you get an EASA Part 66 licence (or a Part-FCLpilot licence) issued by the CAA before it leaves EASA you will be an "existing holder of a UK issued EASA licence". The only way to preserve the EU privileges of an EASA licence issued by the UK CAA is to have it reissued by another EASA State before it ceases to be a valid EASA licence. That is why there is so much stuff on the CAA website telling people how to move their licences to other countries - in the jargon 'change the State of Licence Issue (SOLI)"
On the CAA website is a section specific to Brexit -
i.e. The page 'Our-work - About-us - Brexit'
Halfway down that page there is a bullet point which reads:
- UK-issued licences and approvals (issued when the UK was an EASA member) will continue to have validity under UK law but only those contained in EU Regulation 2019/494 will continue to have validity within the EU system, as defined by that regulation.
If you look up EU Regulation 2019/494 you will find that in the Annex to the Regulation it lists the UK issued licences and approvals that will remain valid for a limited period. If you refer to that Annex you will find that it DOES NOT include Part 66 licences nor does it include Part-FCL pilot licences. They will all cease to be valid in the EU.
That is why thousands of UK licensed pilots and engineers have made sure they have had their UK EASA licences re-issued by other countries - such as the Republic of Ireland and Austria (because Easyjet is changing from a British to an Austrian airline because of Brexit).
That same page on the CAA website says:
- All licences issued by the CAA under EU legislation, and all type approval certificates and third country approvals issued by EASA under EU legislation, will continue to have validity under UK law, provided they were effective immediately before 1 January 2021.
This is consistent with the reality that an EASA Part 66 licence issued by the UK CAA will become a UK national licence, still valid for G registered aircraft, but ONLY valid for G registered aircraft. These licences will not be valid for aircraft registered outside the UK unless other countries sign new agreements to make UK national licences valid for aircraft on their registers. Probably not a priority for anyone in the current crisis.
The advice is simple (and you will find it implied on the UK CAA website if you look hard enough).
If you want to work on or fly aircraft that are registered in EASA Member States after this year, get yourself a licence issued by an EU Member State, not the UK CAA.