Originally Posted by
212man
Yes really.
The CAA link you have quoted clearly states that non-UK EASA licences issued before the cutoff can be converted to UK licences.
The EU has published conversion rules (again it's all in the link you shared) stating what must be done. They've also said that it's up to individual states how that's interpreted.
The general interpretation is that if you passed the EASA ATPL examinations in the UK
when it was a member state and they are still valid then those examinations meet that requirement and don't need to be retaken. The 7 year validity rule will be counted from the last EASA IR validity - effectively rendering all UK ATPL exams valid until 2028 at the latest. A victory for common sense.
Obviously any UK-only licences issued post-cutoff do not meet this requirement. The real victims at the moment are those who held a UK-issued EASA licence but who were grandfathered into EASA, since they never took the exams in the first place.