By the way, I have a very good friend who worked at the CAA during 2019-24 who tells me there was a ~2 year long process of the UK CAA handing out 1000s of UK part FCLs based on the EASA equivalents with identical validity to ratings even if those individuals had never held a U.K. licence or medical
in fact he tells me they processed 100s of applications from all over the world (Asia, US and apparently lots of Middle East) who happened to have EASA licences/ratings alongside their national license
pay a few hundred pound and they got a U.K. equivalent, was there ever such a boondoggle the other way around? I can tell you for
a fact there wasn’t as, as above, I was trying to get an EASA licence based on my U.K. licence and training at the time. This meant I had to do 2 sets of skill tests and as I said 2 medicals
so why the cribbing now? 1000s of Europeans now have UK FCLs and medicals thanks to that process, but we’ve left EASA and the divergence will only Increase. If there’s to be mutual recognition then it should be just that and it should also go along with the Europeans giving the same freedoms to work based on being a skilled worker