Originally Posted by
rudestuff
People who either ignored what was clearly written on the front of their passport and got the wrong licence in the first place or people who started with an EASA licence and ignored years of warnings to change it the easy way?
Originally Posted by
Ver5pen
so you’ve conflated 3 groups here
1) EASA licence holders with no right to work in the UK
as I said above- as long as there’s no mutual recognition of this right for CAA licence holders why should the U.K. government screw over their own taxpayers to make concessions on this? Only a handful of UK airlines may benefit from this but not Uk nationals with CAA licences
2) Brits with EASA licences only
this group I have zero sympathy for. If they had EASA licences prior to 2023 all they had to do to gain a CAA licence alongside their EASA license/medical (they would never have been required to surrender anything) was pay a few hundred pounds to the UK CAA. if they have obtained a EASA licence post Brexit then more fool
them, I trained post Brexit and the advice from my ATO was always to align your licence with where you have the right to work.
3) same as point 2, you have to make decisions based on reality. And if you are paying 10s of thousands to train for this profession are we really going to pretend a few hundred extra are the barrier to this industry?
It would be absolutely valid if we went for mutual recognition between EASA and CAA ATPLs considering they are both ICAO licences but only if that went alongside right to work, if not then why should U.K. licence holders be sacrificed as usual? The US pilot market is the most lucrative in the world because of the right to work wall that exists+ how hard it is to obtain a FAA equivalent of your FCL. Of course it will benefit airlines and their bottom lines to be able to import an endless supply of foreign pilots into the marketplace but who pays the CAA’s fees and tax to the U.K. government?
Whenever this gets discussed the people on the side of "more fool those who didn't get their EASA license converted to CAA, or attained an EASA over a CAA license" love to divert the conversation to this rather than address the actual point which was raised, which is, at this moment is the policy actually leading airlines to employ/train more British pilots? Since BA are stating very clearly on their recruitment page for several direct entry positions that they are happy to facilitate working visas for those with a CAA license, or able to, or just willing to, convert their existing license to a CAA one, the argument that this is all great for specifically British national pilots seems to be very much up for debate.
I agree that the recognition should be mutual, but the right to work has nothing to do with it. The CAA recognizing EASA licenses as equivalent should have no effect on who is able to get a job as a pilot in the UK, as that should be regulated by the visa system. If we are currently in a situation where pilots are being given working visas to come and work for airlines in the UK, that speaks to a shortage of talent, not an issue with what authority your identical qualification to fly an aircraft comes from. Given that is the case, why not make it more easy for individuals by getting rid of what almost all would agree are pointless exam resits, and make it harder for companies by restricting the visas they can give out?