EASA to hit overseas training?
I had an interesting conversation the other evening with an old mate who is now working for EASA in Cologne. It appears that, when EASA takes over Flight Crew Licensing in a year or two's time, it intends to take responsibility itself for the approval of all 'third country' training organisations (that is organisations that are not based in a JAA Member State). Since EASA itself will not have any inspecting staff, the task of inspections and recommendations for approval will be contracted out to the Authorities of individual Member States, who will be paid at a flat rate. It is hoped that the UK CAA, because of its government imposed obligation to recover its costs in full, will not be able to afford to bid for any of this approval work and will have to surrender the task to the likes of France and Germany, who have a far less pragmatic attitude than the UK to the JAA requirements.
The financial impact of having to comply in full with all EASA standards is likely to be significant and, it is rumoured, the hope among some staff at Cologne is that they will be able to price this unwanted overseas competition out of the European flight training market. It will be interesting to see whether they succeed.